tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post2691751150010889365..comments2024-03-25T17:38:55.490-07:00Comments on Dar Kush: Thanks, ErichSteven Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-55669253666027747992009-06-30T08:08:33.450-07:002009-06-30T08:08:33.450-07:00"The amount of simple ignorance around how to..."The amount of simple ignorance around how to eat and move to live absolutely staggers me."<br /><br />Almost no one squats heavy below parallel on a weekly basis. I don't know why, it's not like it's a secret; but as a consequence I am stronger than almost everyone at almost everything, and I lack talent. Certainly shocks the guys who can outbench and outcurl me when we tie up. Lifting *reverses* aging, see www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000465<br /><br />As for diet, high insulin levels promote fat deposition and high carb intakes promote high insulin levels; how hard is it to derive a fat loss strategy from that?Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04606348439737007635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-7157645365497602992009-06-30T05:59:37.675-07:002009-06-30T05:59:37.675-07:00The amount of simple ignorance around how to eat a...<i>The amount of simple ignorance around how to eat and move to live absolutely staggers me.</i><br /><br />alas I hate to tell you<br />that many doctors are among the simply ignorant<br />because nutrition gets only the <br />barest 0f pass-throughs in most of the 127 medical schools on the North American continent<br /><br />At the medical College where I worked<br />for 12 years in the office of Medical Education<br />trying to revise the curriculum<br />to make it more pertinent<br />and less torturous and<br />compassion draining<br />it took great effort to insert more than a few hours<br />into a curriculum overloaded with hours<br />as it was<br />many of them full of unnecessary<br />or fragmented knowledge irrelevant<br />to the practice of medicine<br /><br />I said at the time<br />(I hope things have changed a little bit)<br />that the woman who read Women's Day<br />kn ew more about nutrition than most MD'ssuzannehttp://suzannagig.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-58268035812849190832009-06-28T11:50:07.960-07:002009-06-28T11:50:07.960-07:00"If we extrapolate these findings (assuming t..."If we extrapolate these findings (assuming that nonrespondents show a pattern similar to that of respondents), these facilities in the three large metropolitan areas combined saw approximately 640 Canadian patients for diagnostic radiology services such as computed tomography (CT) scans or MRI and 270 patients for eye procedures such as cataract surgery over a one-year period."<br /><br />Hundreds would be more than scores, and much more than a small handful, right?Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04606348439737007635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-42946724874861291032009-06-28T10:15:13.596-07:002009-06-28T10:15:13.596-07:00I disagree with the contention that life style cho...I disagree with the contention that life style choices that affect life span (obesity, smoking, etc.) have nothing to do with medical care. The amount of simple ignorance around how to eat and move to live absolutely staggers me. When we are all invested in the outcome, social pressures change. Just like there used to be pressure on teenaged couples not to make babies...it had an effect. So these other countries where people live and eat and exercise more healthfully? I say that is most certainly a side-effect of a "we're all in this together" attitude that leads to less ignorance about "what to do" and more cultural pain attached to doing the wrong things, and social approval attached to doing the right things. Carrot, stick, and a clear view of the doorway out.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-82731036417674547322009-06-27T11:42:38.273-07:002009-06-27T11:42:38.273-07:00"You are a first rate spell checker, Erich.&q...<i>"You are a first rate spell checker, Erich."</i><br /><br />Hey, I can't do comparative metazoan genomics <i>all</i> the time.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-71290506886314973022009-06-27T11:14:33.894-07:002009-06-27T11:14:33.894-07:00Sklar said: If we could prevent even a small perce...Sklar said: If we could prevent even a small percentage of people from becoming obese and developing these conditions, the costs of health care could go down far enough to cover everyone's insurance. To that end, we need incentive programs to encourage healthy eating and exercise. Vending machines and fast food should be banned from our schools. Children should be provided with meals that are low in saturated fat, refined carbohydrates, and sugar.<br /><br /><br />My libertarian knee jerk response is to suggest as an alternative simply not subsidizing the production of flour and sugar (and tobacco, and alcohol), at least as a first step.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04606348439737007635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-3212527527613055822009-06-27T11:12:25.468-07:002009-06-27T11:12:25.468-07:00No, there's plenty of things wrong with your w...<i>No, there's plenty of things wrong with your writing on the logical level. It's just that your typo was pretty florid and seemed to merit a '[sic]'.</i><br /><br />You are a first rate spell checker, Erich.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-10860978081320234322009-06-27T09:54:33.658-07:002009-06-27T09:54:33.658-07:00"The links you posted had commentary on stats...<i>"The links you posted had commentary on stats, but not stats."</i><br /><br />Specifically, the three links I've posted so far were commentary on stats by three different economists and a practicing endocrinologist. <br /><br />The Harvard economist <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/06/international-health-comparisons.html" rel="nofollow">Greg Mankiw</a> gave links to commentaries both <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html" rel="nofollow"> by himself in the <i>New York Times</i></a> and by <a href="http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/health_care-bec.html" rel="nofollow">the Nobel laureate in economics Gary Becker on his blog</a>. I think their arguments are correct, but even if they were mistaken, they'd at least be instances of dissent from Obamanomics based upon informed and rational thinking -- something which I've seen people here claiming is oxymoronic.<br /><br />I also cited the economist <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=Mzk2ZDhmYjYwYjU1MjYyYjg0MzBiYjE1Nzg4OGUzZjc=" rel="nofollow">Arnold Kling</a>, who wrote an entire book about health care costs, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Abundance-Rethinking-Health-Care/dp/1933995130" rel="nofollow"><i>Crisis of Abundance</i></a>. If you want Kling's full documentation for the arguments he makes in his short Web article, his book's the place to go.<br /><br />The endocrinologist Mark Sklar <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124571387059539071.html" rel="nofollow">pointed out the obvious</a>: a lot of our health care statistics involve comparing Americans who overeat to Europeans who don't. As an endocrinologist, the man must be seeing the epidemic of type II diabetes that we've had rising in this country for the past 25 years; he notes that were we still practicing the eating habits of 1980, we'd see a lot of the morbidity in our health care go away. He also notes that nothing being proposed in Obamacare is going to do much to change that.<br /><br />I myself have the same objection to Obamacare that I have to the cap-and-trade-and-rent-and-seek bill that just passed the House of Representatives: while the stated goals are unexceptionable, the practical means being proposed strike me as ineffectual, and very unlikely to improve the statistics being invoked as a justification for what in the end -- with either Obamacare or cap-and-trade -- looks much more like a power grab over the private sector by the Democrats in Washington than anything else. The articles I cited give detailed arguments why one might think that.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-58921453242167220502009-06-27T09:47:17.790-07:002009-06-27T09:47:17.790-07:00Steve: You and Dan have both criticized Eric for p...Steve: You and Dan have both criticized Eric for providing a link that has commentary on stats rather than stats themselves. But, stats themselves are less useful than commentary to someone who<br /><br />1)isn't professionally trained in statistics.<br /><br />2)doesn't know how the statistics were collected<br /><br />3)Doesn't know how they were analyzed.<br /><br />Consider the following there are two groups of people, the red people and the green people. The red people live three years longer than green people on average. The reason for this is that green people are more prone to itchiness, which reduces lifespan by one year and stomach upset which reduces life span by two years. If we do a study and only collect data on itchiness and life span we will find a three year difference and ascribe it to itchiness, if collect data only on stomach ache and life span we will conclude stomach ache causes a three year difference. Only by collecting data on both itchiness and stomach ache and properly analyzing it using the correct multivariate statistical technique will we be able to correctly estimate the effect of either one.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-89110181028308539082009-06-27T08:06:54.218-07:002009-06-27T08:06:54.218-07:00Erich--
If I'm not mistaken, I asked if anyon...Erich--<br /><br />If I'm not mistaken, I asked if anyone had stats to counter the Life Expectancy and Infant mortality. The links you posted had commentary on stats, but not stats.<br />##<br />BC--<br />No one is talking about Communism. We ARE talking Universal health care, so you'd need to compare innovation from one capitalistic system to another, changing the minimum number of variables: in this case, socialized medicine compared with free-market. This you have not done.<br />##<br />And I did not say "driven by altruistic concerns." I'm disturbed by the tendency in passionate discussions to take a single aspect and then imply it's the only one. I said that in addition to fear of death, there is concern for family and community. That's not altruism, if the family and/or community supports you back. Is it altruism that makes a man support his children?<br />##<br />If you want to discuss levels of satisfaction, you've made it clear that you aren't satisfied with Canadian care. Great! That's balanced out by any one person dissatisfied by American health care. To be convincing, find those surveys that ask both groups--anecdotal evidence just isn't real useful in comparison to stats.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-64114252015977155042009-06-27T07:04:12.767-07:002009-06-27T07:04:12.767-07:00Since we are having such a spirited debate on the ...Since we are having such a spirited debate on the health care plan, I thought I would post the AMA position on the plan as outlined in an e-mail I received.<br /><br />The American Medical Association has weighed in on the new health care plan being developed by the Obama Team. The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.<br />The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve. The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception. Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted. Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, Grow up!' The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing. The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter." The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea. The Anesthesiologists thought the idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no. <br /><br />In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the assholes in Washington.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-90751562256990599722009-06-27T04:30:41.729-07:002009-06-27T04:30:41.729-07:00"Down to typos now?"
No, there's pl...<i>"Down to typos now?"</i><br /><br />No, there's plenty of things wrong with your writing on the logical level. It's just that your typo was pretty florid and seemed to merit a '[sic]'.<br /><br /><br /><i>"As much work as I can or will do for you."</i><br /><br />When have I asked you to do anything? Go on and be Dan Moran.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-79784336635399681812009-06-26T22:39:46.836-07:002009-06-26T22:39:46.836-07:00"...you still can't name any drugs or tre..."...you still can't name any drugs or treaetments [sic] Democrats have banned."<br /><br />Down to typos now?<br /><br />http://www.waronscience.com/home.php<br /><br />As much work as I can or will do for you.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-70045134757369645562009-06-26T20:49:32.065-07:002009-06-26T20:49:32.065-07:00"...you still can't name any drugs or tre...<i>"...you still can't name any drugs or treaetments [<i>sic</i>] Democrats have banned."</i><br /><br />The Dems banned most molecular biology, 1974-1980, under the Asilomar guidelines. Had that ban continued, development of HIV protease inhibitors to prevent AIDS HIV-positive patients would have been impossible.<br /><br />I've pointed it out to you and cited a book-length description of the Asilomar bans. That's as much work for you as I can or will do.<br /><br />On another thread on this blog, where the subject matter was more recent and getting three different URLs for primary literature references was fast and easy, I did indeed provide such references -- to no effect whatsoever.<br /><br /><br /><i>" I assumed as much in all areas."</i><br /><br />Assumptions are easy, knowledge is hard. Assumptions always conveniently fit one's own ideology, 100% of the time, with no incovenient exceptions; facts don't.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-35337625857805584262009-06-26T20:06:44.892-07:002009-06-26T20:06:44.892-07:00Steve Perry: That sounds nice in theory and I woul...Steve Perry: That sounds nice in theory and I would be all for it if I thought that it could work and work at a manageable cost, but I don't believe it. How will who gets government insurance be determined. If the government gives free health care to anyone who doesn't have paid health care, how many companies are going to keep providing health care as a benefit. This is especially true if such benefits are treated as taxable income. Had the company paid portion of my benefits been taxable last year it would have doubled my taxable income.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-90794092934627863032009-06-26T17:31:03.374-07:002009-06-26T17:31:03.374-07:00Marty --
Nobody wants to take your health insuran...Marty --<br /><br />Nobody wants to take your health insurance away. They want to give it to people who don't have it. Show me where Obama says he's going to rip out the insurance companies' throats and toss their bodies into the abattoir of history. <br /><br />Where is this coming from? It smells like a Limbaugh scare tactic -- and it's simply not true.<br /><br />The sky is not falling. Somebody wants to take care of the poor and the sick. People running around thinking that we are all going to be card-carrying communists if we stop letting the least of us die or suffer aren't paying attention. It ain't gonna happen.Steve Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079658447270792228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-32322470509546497362009-06-26T17:29:30.154-07:002009-06-26T17:29:30.154-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Steve Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079658447270792228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-72198445572571945542009-06-26T16:06:36.077-07:002009-06-26T16:06:36.077-07:00My opposition to changing the health care system i...My opposition to changing the health care system is simple and selfish. My has Barret's Syndrome. This is a disease of the esophagus which has a half percent chance per year of turning cancerous. If not caught quickly it is 100% fatal. She therefore has an endoscopy every two years. I am a good candidate for colon cancer. My mother and aunt both had colon cancer and I have needed polyps removed during my colonoscopy, so I need one every three years. My current insurance pays for these tests. I have no faith that once the government takes over health care and sees the cost that it won't decide that the risk doesn't justify the expenditure and reduce this testing.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-28733926133448585302009-06-26T15:02:48.713-07:002009-06-26T15:02:48.713-07:00Well done. You have a good job, can't be bothe...Well done. You have a good job, can't be bothered to make an argument rather than pronouncements, and you still can't name any drugs or treaetments Democrats have banned. I assumed as much in all areas.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-38631370652002535032009-06-26T12:52:48.441-07:002009-06-26T12:52:48.441-07:00"It's your fault that you didn't cite...<i>"It's your fault that you didn't cite any passages in it, though."</i><br /><br />In other words, we've reached Schwarz's Law.<br /><br />Godwin's Law is that every political argument on the Internet eventually results in somebody invoking Hitler.<br /><br />Schwarz's Law is that every political argument on the Internet eventually results in somebody saying (in effect): "Please write a review article for me on your own time." (Except that they usually don't say "please".)<br /><br />Dan, I really am a working biologist who has a day job and even a semblance of a life. I'm writing this from the lobby of a lecture hall at UCLA, in between seminars at the <a href="http://www.celegans.org" rel="nofollow">biennial C. elegans meeting</a>, at which I both <a href="http://www.genetics-gsa.org/celegans2009/abstracts/fulltext/f80408.htm" rel="nofollow">gave a lecture</a> and <a href="http://www.celegans.org/pages/workshoplisting.shtml#sess302" rel="nofollow">ran a workshop</a> on comparative genomics yesterday. Tonight I have <a href="http://www.genetics-gsa.org/celegans2009/abstracts/fulltext/f80418.htm" rel="nofollow">another presentation</a> to give on transcriptomics, and Saturday I'm running <a href="http://www.celegans.org/pages/workshoplisting.shtml#sess306" rel="nofollow">yet another workshop</a> on the <a href="http://www.wormbase.org" rel="nofollow">C. elegans genome database</a>.<br /><br />I'm not going to walk out of this conference, drive across town to the Caltech library, check out its copy of <i>The DNA Story</i>, and write a review of it with well-excerpted passages ... just so that you can then languidly inform me that you still aren't convinced that continuing the Asilomar procedures from 1974 to 2009 would have made development of HIV protease inhibitors practically impossible.<br /><br />Instead, I'm just going to have to let you "win" this argument, through the power of being the one with less work than me and more time to keep being loudly opinionated about my field.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-16799089857482458332009-06-26T11:44:59.053-07:002009-06-26T11:44:59.053-07:00I love Redd and I've told that joke myself, bu...I love Redd and I've told that joke myself, but the purpose of staying healthy is only marginally to live longer. Mostly it's so that you have the energy to live well. I know guys my own age, mid-40s, who can't walk a mile without getting out of breath.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-87116189925571609482009-06-26T11:36:55.617-07:002009-06-26T11:36:55.617-07:00I do think Republican policies have been very bad ...I do think Republican policies have been very bad for the people who've supported them most enthusiastically. I'll tone down the language I'm using, though; "X screwed Y" is flame war talk that isn't going to convince anyone. My apologies. I do appreciate the civil tone on Barnes blog, and would hate to damage that.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-73678903750551111832009-06-26T11:34:43.283-07:002009-06-26T11:34:43.283-07:00Erich,
Pardon me? Is it my fault that the documen...Erich,<br /><br /><i>Pardon me? Is it my fault that the documentation I'm citing is in a BOOK rather than a blog?</i><br /><br />Nope. It's your fault that you didn't cite any passages in it, though. If typing to make your argument is more work than you want to do, fair enough, but if your theory is that I'm going to go buy a copy of this book, read it, and come back in some weeks to continue this argument, you're probably expecting a bit much from me -- certainly a lot more effort on my end than you're willing to invest on yours.<br /><br />I'm actually researching this online today, so that we can continue this argument in something like real time. There's not a lot out there -- as important political arguments go, this one seems to have been neglected for some reason. I can't think why.<br /><br />You still haven't pointed to a drug or treatment that Democrats have banned.<br /><br /><i>And since when is your ignorance of my profession my fault?</i><br /><br />There's a lot of things I'm ignorant about in the world. There's a lot of things most people are ignorant about in the world. When I make an assertion about modeling hierarchies in the real world, as I did recently, I explain my background and my thinking: I don't say, I've been designing databases for 27 years and you're ignorant: shut up and listen. Instead I try to explain myself, my background, and my reasoning, in ways that are relevant to the people bothering to read me. You should try it.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-2157238160807238782009-06-26T11:32:17.952-07:002009-06-26T11:32:17.952-07:00"Why a roomful of Christians debating whether..."Why a roomful of Christians debating whether Islam is inferior is such a joke."<br /><br />Currently, the most credible and scathing condemnation of Islam is issuing from Atheists, particularly those who were once ardent Muslims, but who apostated upon witnessing its full horror. The criticisms of Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan and Tasmina Nasrin are far harder to dismiss than are those of the NeoCons. <br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txwUT8Csh4<br /><br />Ethiopian_InfidelAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-71152309686531933512009-06-26T10:12:27.767-07:002009-06-26T10:12:27.767-07:00As a society we still are denying the inevitabilit...As a society we still are denying the inevitability of it all and our health care system is a symptom of this.Two jokes summarize it for me<br />- Doctors says I have good news, we can add years to your life. The bads news is that they are all at the end.<br />- To paraphase Red Fox. " I feel bad for all the people who took care of themselves. Someday they'll be lying in a hospital bed dying of nuthin.<br />For sure it's not that simple but....<br />RodAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com