But polar bears and black bears are separate species. "Races" are not. Races are more like breeds of cats, although significantly less distinct. So maybe more like gray squirrels.

Gray squirrels live all over North America, but don't look the same. Gray squirrels where I live are small and in fact, gray. Gray squirrels where my parents live are reddish brown and sort of chubby, and gray squirrels in Canada are huge and very dark, almost black. All the same species. They just look different. So maybe Canadian squirrels have fat storing genes that are, on average, 1% more efficient than the eastern American squirrels to deal with the cold. So now imagine that gray squirrels have developed air travel and boats and cars and the internet, and started meeting squirrels who looked different than they did. Now you can easily imagine some large, black squirrels who developed a fetish for tiny, gray, New England squirrels. They have babies and move here to RI, and now the eastern US has a lot of black squirrels, because black fur is a strong gene compared to light gray. But they do not share much more genetic heritage with big, black, Canadian squirrels than with midwestern squirrels.

Are the black squirrels in my back yard still the same race as the black squirrels in Canada? It depends a lot on what the word race means. If you define is "do they have black fur?" then, yes. If you define it as "do they have the same percentages of the telltale gene clusters as the black squirrels in Canada?" then, no. Maybe some of these squirrels have that more efficient fat storing gene, but only a few, since not does it not hinder their survival if they lack it, it's been watered down with the normal fat genes of the New England squirrels.

I think the issue really is that the way we define our race as individuals has very little bearing on anything other than appearance, which is a poor indicator of all but a small handful of genes, none of which relate to anything OTHER than things like hair , eye color or shape, skin color... yes, you are more likely to have a gene for sickle cell anemia if you have dark skin, but the frequency of the gene does not replicate the frequency found in most native African populations.There probably was a time in human history where there were populations which could more easily be genetically defined, but it would have to have been a time before there was any considerable interaction between cultures from different geographical areas. Which was clearly long before we knew we were made of cells, or that there was such a thing as DNA.

I plan on listening very closely when a study comes out of trying to link something like IQ to race in populations that have not had a lot of external genetic influence, but good luck designing that study. It would not be possible in the US, and good luck designing a reliable IQ testing method that will work on , say, aboriginals, isolated pockets of native Africans, and a small community deep in the Appalachian mountains. And good luck finding enough subjects to make statistical significance.

But that's the point isn't it? Cancer isn't an organism. It's your own body cells malfunctioning. An organism (like a virus) can cause cancer, but the infection doesn't kill you at all. And on a viral timescale, you dying of cancer 20 years from now is meaningless. In that time you may have been able to infect hundreds of other hosts. Sounds like a fantastic strategy.

Cancer is not subject to evolutionary pressure the way an individual organism is because it's just a part of your body working abnormally. If you want to get even more specific, the genes that cancer cells are over expressing are the same genes that allow you to grow, heal, and use cell receptor only when appropriate (as opposed to all the time). All of these functions are so important to you as an individual that the risk that they will break and stop working right and give you cancer are minute compared to the advantage of having them. And until the last few thousand years, you were so likely to be killed by something else (like starvation, war, infectious disease, childbirth, etc.) that the cancer risk manifested so rarely as to be almost non-existent. You can blame modern medicine for letting you live long enough to develop cancer.

It's true that it usually doesn't, but it sometimes CAN. A cell that has minor damage will most certainly be repaired. A cell that has major damage will lyse and hopefully be replaced by new cells. But when all of the cells lyse at once, there is no way to replace them fast enough. If you can keep most of the cells alive long enough for some non-damaged cells to proliferate, then you could theoretically have viable organs at the end.

Normally, it's more energy efficient to convert a damaged cell into basic components that can be reused than repair the cell, but the repair mechanisms do exist. Apoptosis can be halted, and things will go on relatively normally. The damaged cells might not work all correctly, but if faced with the option of 'die' or 'maybe die', I'll choose 'maybe die'. Plus, if the dangerous part of radiation therapy can be averted, the cancer I'm liable to get later is a lot easier to deal with.

I always thought that this argument was so backward. It's the same with stray cats. There are too many cats. We can keep some of them alive and find people to adopt some of them, but there are always more cats that cat adopters, so it consumes net resources. The cats will die, either through being stray (disease, starvation, hit by a car, poisoned with rat poison...) or when the available resources run out for the shelter while they await adoption (either starving or euthanasia, which seems less cruel to me).

Most people can agree that it would be better to not need to kill cats. But unless there are not too many cats, then we need to. And to minimize the number we need to kill, it takes resources. So if resources can be gained after the animals are euthanized, say by selling them to a high school for the advanced biology students to dissect, then the money can go to save more animals later. That's less net cats killed. That's GOOD, right?

It isn't meaningless to say that we shouldn't euthanize cats (or homeless people). But what you're really saying is that we shouldn't get anything good out of it. Which isn't the same. Work to stop the cause: there are too many homeless people, stray cats, unused embryos. Convince people to solve the original problem, not focus in on something unrelated that arises out of the current solution to the problem.

Why the hell do people need IVF to begin with. How about adopting some of the extra babies? There are a lot of extra babies. If people weren't inefficiently making more through IVF, there wouldn't be extra embryos do make stem cell lines out of, and it would be a moot point.

If you oppose euthanasia for homeless people, then oppose that. If you oppose using organs for research, then oppose that (although I hope you don't). But don't oppose using organs for research because you oppose euthanasia for homeless people. That's misguided.

I'm actually with you on this. But you forget one thing: we have all agreed that children cannot give consent, and their parents or guardians get to do that for them. So all of the embryonic stem cell lines are created with the consent of the donors, who are the figures with legal authority to give consent in this case.

All pediatric research uses consent from the parents. Stem cells are exactly the same. Kids aren't able to decide, which is why we don't allow them to vote or buy cigarettes.

When those embryos are allowed to vote, buy cigarettes, get married... then you ought to ask them. Until then, we just ask their "parents".

D4: the caltrop of the dice world.

While that is a closer example, your feet should touch the ground on a motorcycle. You can balance with your feet on the ground without taking your butt off the seat.

I concur though, that if bikes want to ask cars to follow all the laws then they ought to to. Which is why if I ever roll through a stop when there is another car around, I give anyone permission to squish me.

I don't think *I'M* really claiming moral high ground. I just don't appreciate being honked at when I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll make you a deal: motor vehicles can use their better judgment for speed limits (and here in RI, the limits are way off... 25 pretty much everywhere except a highway... that's ludicrous) and bikes can use their better judgment for residential all way stops. Everything else, and you're getting run off the road.

I think it has more to do with the fact that I have to dismount my bike to come to a full stop. Unless you have a special bike, your feet don't touch the ground and you'll fall over. That doesn't hold for a car. You don't have to agree with me. I'm just explaining why I (and SOME of the laws agree, but mostly not right now) will sometimes roll through a stop. And I'm certainly not influencing your driving experience in the slightest to do so.

I also hate those superfluous stop signs. In fact, I hate them more on my bike than in my car.

Yield and run are not the same thing. Yield means slow down, and if no one else is coming you can go. If other people are coming you DO NOT have the right of way, and should be run over. It doesn't give you right of way, it just means that a rolling stop when no other vehicles are coming is acceptable for a bike. And this isn't true in most places. I'm breaking the law to do it, and if you've seen me do it from a car, then I'm doing it wrong and you ought to run over me by my own admission.

Cyclists ARE routinely not following the rules. Run them over. But so are drivers. Tractor trailer drivers, I'm relying on you to help evolution along. I appreciate that some people suck at doing things, but you can't make all roads "CAR ONLY" because some people suck at using roads.

I'm fully in favor of ticketing cyclists, making them have insurance, get a registration, take a class to learn how to ride a bike without being a douche, what ever. But roads are simply not for motor vehicles only. That's what freeways are for, and bikers on one have disobeyed the law and should get squished.

Really, if we attempt to squish only the BAD drivers or cyclists, we will eventually breed those traits out.

Again, if a road isn't designed for traffic other than motor vehicles, it's posted. Look for the signs on on-ramps. Otherwise, it's for cars, bikes, horses, pedestrians, or whoever else wants to safely use it.

Roads were around long before cars.

This is actually the ONE traffic law that doesn't work out well for bikes. I both bike and drive a lot, and in certain situations when biking, I admit that I will treat a stop sign as a yield instead. In my residential neighborhood, there are some stops that I can see for blocks in any direction, and it's a four way stop. Any car visible at all will reach the stop before me. If there are no visible cars at all, then I slow down as much as possible, then speed back up. It is actually safer for me to keep moving a little bit than to stop completely. This is being reflected by some communities passing laws allowing cyclists to do just this: pretend a stop sign says yield.

Now, all of this goes out the window when there are other cars, it's not a four way stop in a residential area, it's dark, it's raining... In ALL of those situations, you need to stop. Along with every other traffic sign. You need to follow those.

As someone who uses roads, I generally reserve my vitriol for people who are not following the rules. I secretly hope that bikers who run red lights (or ride on the sidewalk, ride against traffic, insert illegal activity here...) get hit by cars. I also hope that drivers who pass unsafely (or run red lights, don't signal turns, stop to let someone else go when they have a clear right of way, insert bad driver activity here...) get run off the road by tractor trailers.

In my opinion, many people fall into the "bad" category in both parties, and deserve to be in serious accidents. But just because some people can't do it correctly doesn't mean no one should be allowed.

The gasoline was tax was repealed and replaced with a law stating that you must choose between a bicycle or a car, and no one may own both.

By this logic, people who own the lowest gas mileage cars have the greatest right to the road. Sorry. It's not yours. It's everyone's.

I believe you may have forgotten the SELECT just before the START? That puts you at 12.

Right on.