There has been evidence of this association floating around for ages. On the balance of evidence there may be reason for concern, but in particular as with anything in medicine, the right decision for any individual may come from presence of the right (or wrong) risk factors.
See e.g. : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121114083928.htm http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/01/11/the-neuroscience-of-pot-researchers-explain-why-marijuana-may-bring-serenity-or-psychosis/
One factor that would seem to be relevant is the proportion of THC and cannabidiol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol) present in plant strains, and change in ratios from decades past as plant breeding has changed the landscape of what effects may be expected from a particular plant.
The extreme reaction of "Reefer Madness" is almost certainly misguided, but there is reason to suggest that more science is needed towards ascertaining that the full benefits may be had, and risk factors removed (e.g. via genetic tests and controlled breeding/testing of plant strains) whether for medicinal purposes or otherwise.
With respect to i., I'm hoping there's a biologist out there that is able to shed some light on a general question in this area of study:
Does the conclusion of this work amount to more than "one branch of a classification tree derived from observed data is more intermixed with another branch of the tree than previous data showed"?
I'm not trying to say anything about differences in people, or comment on methods in this area of study - but rather to understand the broader context of the reported results. Is the critical consideration that evolution tends to follow a continuum, but there are critical junctures where a mutation or two significantly changed the population dynamics subject to time, competition and environmental conditions? Is it a matter of coarse-grained as opposed to fine-grained changes over time, and where does one draw the line for coarse?
When you connect your social media account to somethiing, it's reasonable to expect that every permission that they describe they are requesting they are actually going to use. If you're not comfortable with this, then don't connect the account to the service. Period.
"Stupid users" is a bit harsh. I'm sure that there is a reasonably large group of individuals that are relatively intelligent, but don't understand the technology and what they're signing up for. "To(o) lazy to read" is also pushing it. Terms of service, EULA's etc. are typically exceedingly long, and also sometimes verge closer to legalese than what many are used to reading. Prior to the inception of "big data", and privacy concerns coming front and center, I'm sure that many people were in the habit of simply clicking "agree" since it didn't matter all that much. Today this is much less true. The notion that "stupid people" should know better than to "agree" to something without knowing what they are agreeing to is potentially a dangerous doctrine to be pushing. Consider a con artist, or e-mail scam, or any scenario where there is someone gaining at the expense of someone else. Perhaps some blame lies with the victim, but certainly there are many scenarios where the finger can be pointed squarely at the aggressor.
The thing is that our purchasing power is the only real "rolled up newspaper" that we have when it comes to corporations crapping on the rug that is our beloved tech...
Can't help but wonder if the phrase "rolled up newspaper" will still carry relevance with corporal punishment increasingly being frowned upon (I assume this is true for animals too)? It would be nice though... if the penalty for these kinds of shenanigans were a public spanking for all the executives. It might not solve anything, but would make for good entertainment.
Sounds to me like those people think the essentials of education can be quantized. Sure some measurements are important, but that's not all there is to learning. And those students probably will start valuing themselves by their ranking, and only have those numbers in their heads. I can see how HR departmants will be fans. Another method, like the IQ statistic, to assign numbers to people. What a dumb idea to get yourself ranked.
This is very true. An additional core issue, is 1. the impact of measuring behavior on behavior that is observed and 2. feedback into the overall loop. Regarding 1. If someone is prone to picking their nose, do they do so more often when people are watching, or privately? Some sports players are known for shining under intense pressure, while others crumble at the most critical moments. For a more complex "monitoring" system, it's difficult to discern what the impact might be on behaviors that one might observe if the system were not in place. Regarding 2. For the basic loop of: a. Collect data on behavior b. Model/Analyze/Form Policies c. Use b. to "guide students" changing a. Assuming b. is sensible, is the goal of the system to have observations in a. driven towards the maximum of an objective function defined by b. (What is the guarantee of convergence?). The biggest problem perhaps, is even in assuming that the policies in b. do meet some ideal (that everyone agrees is ideal etc.) to assume that it is possible to drive the dynamics of the overall system in a fashion that has predictable consequences may be very misguided. The medicine can also easily become the disease. (looking at you Bufo marinus)
Turtles all the way down.
Funny, but also Insightful?
Turtles all the way down, or turtles all the way up?
If we inhabit the 3D manifold that resides in a black hole within a 4D bulk universe, and observe 3D black holes (with a 2D event horizon), does this imply 1D black holes inside of the black holes that we observe (with 0D black holes inside...). Is the 4D bulk universe a black hole in a 5D hyper-bulk universe within a 6D
The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.