"Of over 13,000 islands examined, approximately 12% experienced significant shifts in shoreline positions. The total shoreline length of these islands approaches 200,000 km, with 7.57% showing signs of landward erosion and 6.05% expanding seaward. Human activities, particularly reclamation and land filling, were identified as primary drivers of local shoreline transformations, while natural factors have a comparatively minor impact. "
So it's a case of 'Take it from me, I'm an expert and it's nonsense' is it? Presumably no one needs to read any further on this topic. A relief to many no doubt.
I mean I have an internal model in the making since I started my biochemistry bachelor in 1999, I moved through a molecular biology master into a biophysics PhD (where I also disrupted microtubules to investigate molecular processes of GPCRs), then into a professional career as a bioinformatician in the genomics field.
And when I read this:
“Wiest and his research team found that when they gave rats a drug that binds to microtubules, it took the rats significantly longer to fall unconscious under an anesthetic gas. The research team's microtubule-binding drug interfered with the anesthetic action, thus supporting the idea that the anesthetic acts on microtubules to cause unconsciousness.”
It certainly sounds probable microtubule disruption would do that but there are so insanely many ways that this could be explained using classical, non-quantum hypotheses (that need testing!), and microtubules serve so many different functions in cells, that the quantum theory falls completely outside of the possibilities of my internal models. I have no need of such an outlandish hypothesis.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this paper is not it. Sure there is a small chance I’m going to be wrong but Bayes would agree with me it’s an exceedingly small chance given all priors.
Just the scale difference between microtubules and whatever gives our brain that sense of consciousness is so unimaginably vast and complex that simple statements such as in TFA are really hinting at (feigned for attention?) ignorance.
I like your take here, but I just want to say, that I'm not sure claiming that consciousness has a quantum basia is that extraordinary.
We deal with lots of things that are quantum in nature on a daily basis. Once you get down to a certain size, it's essentially a guarantee, and nature has taken advantage of quantum effects before, like photo synthesis.
My take is that there isn't good evidence yet. One result doesn't make it.
Once I can plug my brain into a super conscious-net like the matrix with technology engineered on top of the theory, THAT'S when we have it figured out.
Consciousness must be much more high level than microtubules and quantum effects. I think the split brain "experiments" (not really experiments [0, 1]) are much more useful than the experiments presented in tfa.
And we need to keep cool heads so we can assess the full true costs of all energy technologies without being wedded to an agenda (such that it disregards inconvenient facts) either way. Taking account of the numerous coal mines opening in China to provide the electricity for solar panel or turbine construction doesn't imply an anti-green mindset. Out of sight, out of mind! Worth mentioning that without that 19th century crap, none of the advances we enjoy today would have been possible. But we do indeed move on as the evidence directs - one trusts.
Yes, we should understand the impact of newer forms of energy production, that's how evolution goes forward.
Naturally older energy production methods stay online while newer ones ramp up.
But a lot of criticism of newer technologies come from people acting like Coal plants emit butterflies and oil didn't cause any problems.
It's good to remind that both oil and coal also had a lot of problems during its technological ramp up (also because steam engines were evolving as well) but we forget about those with time.
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