I think in some cases we have the opposite problem. You don't need to be a genius or even much above average to be a doctor, just to get into med school. There are easily twice as many qualified applicants as spots available.

The vast majority of extant genes will of course be "selfish genes." Otherwise they wouldn't have been passed on.

I think this was pretty firmly considered impossible - there is a problem in my stat mech textbook (Kittel and Kromer, Thermal Physics) as follows: 7.7) Photon condensation. Consider a science fiction universe in which the number of photons N is constant, at a concentration of 10^20 cm^-3. The number of thermally excited photons we assume is given by the result of Problem 4.1, which is Ne=2.404V(tau^3)/(pi^2hbar^3c^3). Find the critical temperature in K below which Ne N. The excess N - Ne will be in the photon mode of lowest frequency; the excess might be described as a photon condensate in which there is a large concentration of photons in the lowest mode. In reality there is no such principle that the total number of photons be constant, hence there is no photon condensate.

From your link: "Several exceptions to the doctrine exist, especially if unlawful discrimination is involved regarding the termination of an employee." Political discrimination is pretty much always unlawful. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is unlawful in many states.

Even MIT has stopped teaching functional programing in most of their CS courses. They switched to a combination of Python and Java.

The US series are cheap because they have a large domestic audience. The US series are shown in other countries because they are cheap, and this makes them even cheaper. Nowhere in this chain of events is force being applied by anyone to anyone. Whether or not they are good is both subjective and irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned, all television is terrible and I don't watch it. (This is, of course, the cheapest option. But I don't feel like I'm being forced to make it.)

Really? The US is forcing you to watch its television programs and movies...by providing them at a cheap price? Well, there are Americans who believe similar things about China, so I guess idiots abound in every country.

Over and underrated mods don't get metamodded, so they're a safe way to be an asshole.

Energy enters neurons almost exclusively as sugars. In the rare situations when adequate carbohydrates are unavailable, neurons can survive off of ketone bodies from fats elsewhere in the body, but this is a last resort and ketone bodies have poisonous byproducts. In this context, saying "the brain is fueled by carbohydrates" is true and meaningful, saying it runs on fat is mostly false, and saying it runs on ATP is not meaningful and sort of dickish.

Because contrary to popular opinion, China is not an insect colony with a hive mind. It is our obligation to protect the freedom of individuals wherever they happen to be located.

I can tell you what that paragraph is missing. The Chinese were soundly defeated by the western countries, and forced to sign a very unfavorable treaty. Huge indemnities were paid to the 8 nations, many boxers and government officials who joined them were executed, and more territorial concessions were made. That is, more of China was colonized. The Qing dynasty became more unpopular for signing the treaty, and the refusal of Yuan Shikai to fight the 8 nations made it clear they were losing control. The people began to consider them foreigners and they barely managed to last a decade after signing. The 8 nations had not been trying to restore the Guangxu Emperor and I'm do not think the information about him is relevant. He'd been under house arrest since before the war. Anyway, the 8 nations did not need the Qing, as shown by their support for the RoC's formation.

The Boxer rebellion is not a particularly effective example of resistance to foreign control...unless the foreigners you're talking about are the Qing. Really, China got its independence because the Japanese took it over before being destroyed by a greater power, not because the Chinese fought off foreign control.

There are many small, unglamorous problems in science whose solutions are nonetheless important.

Your 1080p h264 files are probably just shitty upscales of low quality divx files some weeaboo downloaded off of Share.

Einstein's belief in God is what lead him to make his stupid "God doesn't play dice" comment. If one of the greatest scientific minds ever to exist can be crippled by religion, then I have good evidence science and religion are incompatible.