#formulating hypotheses

[elblogdecleo]

Effective Research Process: From Problem Identification to Reporting Findings

In the realm of academia and beyond, research serves as a pivotal tool for uncovering new knowledge and solving complex problems. Whether you’re a seasoned scholar or a curious beginner, understanding the research process is essential for producing impactful and credible work. In this article, we’ll explore the fundamental stages of the research process and the various modalities that guide…

[schntgaispocko]

you should kiss dr mccoy on the lips, for science

Science officers Blog, Ask #12

Anonymous,

I have considered the scientific benefits of kissing many of my crew members on the lips. Especially The Doctor and Captain.

I hypothesize that if I preform this act on Dr. Mccoy, then we will feel the mental and physical benefits that are involved with sensual actions.

I hope my predictions will be supported, if not it would be quite strange for the both of us. I have a routine physical exam tomorrow, perhaps I will test this hypothesis.

Thank you for formulating the idea for this experiment, I will try to keep this blog updated.

Spock Out.

[politicalprof]

The Banality of AI and the destruction of actual thought:

In my continuing exploration of the many ways AI is going to make it ever easier to say bland and innocuous things without having to think about it, I present the following prompt and response from Google Gemini for anyone interested.

For context, universities have for decades now been layering on new requirements intended to provide an "objective" basis for assessing why one candidate deserves tenure or not, or why one applicant deserves a grant or a job, etc. However, while these layers may be well-intended, in time they devolve into rote exercises that prove little beyond the fact that you know how to write certain types of statements "the right way." One such statement that is commonly required these days is a "teaching statement." It is ubiquitous for job applications, tenure and promotion files, and even some grant applications. Enjoy!

Prompt:

write a teaching statement for a tenure application that emphasizes my use of student-centered, active learning with the goal of developing my students' critical thinking skills

Response:

Teaching Statement

My approach to teaching is rooted in the belief that students learn best by actively engaging with course material and constructing their own understanding. I strive to create dynamic, student-centered learning environments that foster critical thinking, collaboration, and intellectual curiosity. My goal is not simply to transmit knowledge, but to empower students to become independent thinkers and lifelong learners.

Student-Centered Learning: I prioritize student engagement and agency in the learning process. I design my courses with a variety of active learning strategies, including:

Inquiry-based learning: I pose open-ended questions and present real-world problems that encourage students to explore concepts, formulate hypotheses, and develop solutions collaboratively.

Collaborative projects: I incorporate group work and peer learning activities that promote teamwork, communication, and the exchange of diverse perspectives.

Case studies and simulations: I use case studies and simulations to provide students with opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations, analyze complex scenarios, and make informed decisions.

Reflective writing and discussions: I encourage students to reflect on their learning through journals, online forums, and class discussions, promoting metacognition and deeper understanding.

Developing Critical Thinking: A central focus of my teaching is to cultivate students' critical thinking skills. I explicitly teach and model these skills through:

Analyzing and evaluating information: I guide students in assessing the credibility, relevance, and bias of information sources, encouraging them to question assumptions and challenge conventional wisdom.

Constructing arguments and supporting claims: I provide opportunities for students to develop well-reasoned arguments, supported by evidence and logical reasoning.

Problem-solving and decision-making: I present complex problems that require students to analyze information, identify potential solutions, and evaluate their consequences.

Debates and discussions: I facilitate respectful and intellectually stimulating debates and discussions that encourage students to consider multiple perspectives and refine their own viewpoints.

Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment: I am committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive classroom where all students feel valued, respected, and supported in their learning. I strive to:

Establish clear expectations and learning goals.

Provide timely and constructive feedback.

Offer individualized support and guidance.

Promote a culture of respect and open communication.

Assessment and Continuous Improvement: I use a variety of assessment methods to measure student learning and inform my teaching practice, including:

Formative assessments: I use ongoing assessments, such as quizzes, in-class activities, and online discussions, to monitor student progress and provide timely feedback.

Summative assessments: I use exams, projects, and presentations to evaluate student learning outcomes and mastery of course content.

Student feedback: I actively solicit student feedback through course evaluations and informal surveys to identify areas for improvement and refine my teaching strategies.

Conclusion: I am passionate about teaching and dedicated to creating engaging and effective learning experiences for my students. I believe that my student-centered, active learning approach, with its emphasis on critical thinking, prepares students not only for success in their academic pursuits but also for meaningful engagement in their future careers and communities. I am committed to continuous growth as an educator and look forward to further developing my teaching practice at [Institution Name].

[kafkaoftherubble]

神祗的庐山真面目

//Forms and Names

I have always wanted to write three After God essays!

The first one came at the tail end of Chapter 58 discussing Ahu’az and Yako.

The second one was something I’ve always wanted to do—an interesting mental framework to analyze Tokinaga Sachiyuki.

Now comes the third essay, ironically, the first After God ramble formulated in our Discord conversation. Hahaha. The last essay in this series is the actual first one that started it all, @orange-peel-candy!

This essay concerns my speculations and hypotheses regarding the gods’ forms... and The Man Stronger Than the Gods.

Be warned: spoilers abound up till at least Chapter 58 (a.k.a. the last chapter I read!). It's also a very, very long read.

What Do We Know So Far?

I am a two-bit detective-scientist wannabe. Before we start to speculate, we should lay out some of the facts that we already know. I hope I didn’t get any facts wrong because I’m mostly going off from memory, which is pretty corrupted from things like work, daily life, Buddhist Philosophy (yes), science, Neon Genesis Evangelion (I’m disappointed in myself for this), the likes:

Chapter 1

Out of the four, we know three gods’ animal forms.

Vollof is a rabbit,

Ahu’az is a rooster (yes, calling it Chicken God was me being an ass),

Orokapi is a snake.

Did ya notice something?

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Chinese Twelve Zodiac – the Calendar

Wikipedia

The zodiacs are used by the Chinese as a calendar system, which assigns an animal to a respective year following a twelve-year cycle [1]. The sequence  goes like this:

鼠、牛、虎、兔、龙、蛇、马、羊、猴、鸡、狗、猪

Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Boar

Vollof, Orokapi, and Ahu’az are part of this group.

So, my bold first hypothesis is that—

All of the IPOs introduced to us will be animals from the Twelve Zodiac.

I assign a modest 78% confidence level toward this hypothesis since all three we have known have come from this group.

From here, let's go through these queries:

Are the other gods also animals from the Chinese Zodiac?

Where does Allula fit in this, if the Chinese Zodiac theory is true?

Is there anything about the Chinese Zodiac, such as myths and philosophy, that may serve as story hints for certain characters in the story?

Particularly, is there some basis to make a hypothesis regarding The Man Stronger Than the Gods?

----

Query #1: Are the other gods also animals from the Chinese Zodiac?

Well, we don’t actually have that many IPOs teased other than our 4 known gods. The only one we have, here, is the furry paw. Let’s look at it again:

Chapter 1.

Hypothesis 1: This is a tiger. [50% confident;  0.85 x 0.78 = 0.663; 39% overall confidence]

Hypothesis 2: This is a dog. [50%; 39% overall]

Hypothesis 3: This is an animal not part of the Zodiacs [22% overall]

Both a cat and a dog have 5 toes in their front legs (and 4 in their hind legs). But a cat’s dew claw is much closer to its other claws. A dog’s paw, meanwhile, has the dew claw being much farther away [2].

From Hepper.com.

This mystery IPO’s claws are certainly close to each other—including its dew claw. That makes it resemble a tiger’s claw more (Hypothesis 1, or H1). Another piece of circumstantial evidence is that this IPO was walking past a street filled with stray cats. If the IPO was a dog, I don’t think these cats could be this chill.

Nonetheless, H2 has good grounds, too. For what little we see here, the paw doesn’t show a tiger’s typical strip, and the tail is a little too bushy for a tiger. There’s also the fact that these claws aren’t protracted despite not being required during a stroll. A dog’s claw doesn’t protract [2]!

We can even explain away the cats’ relative calmness by positing the IPO as invisible to their eyes, kinda like how they can’t be captured by cameras.

Nonetheless, H1 and H2 have strong enough standing. Whether a tiger or a dog, neither conclusion will counter our zodiac hypothesis.

----

There is, of course, a 22% confident hypothesis where the IPOs do not actually follow the Zodiac convention.

This opens up a lot more options for our mysterious IPO—a wolf, a lion, a cat, etc.

There is also this little panel you’ve helpfully pointed out:

Chapter 44.

There appears to be a fish IPO in this panel, which is not part of the Twelve Zodiacs. The only true aquatic animal among them is the dragon, or龍 (long)。

If the fact that a Long is actually an aquatic animal is new information to you, I’ve once written quite a bit about it in (yes, I know. Why does this bro yap so much?) an essay for a good friend explaining the origin of the dragon’s orb. Long story short: dragons are seen as the kings of the ocean and storm.

There isn’t much hard evidence to refute this “fish” IPO. One suggestion (thanks to you) is that maybe the “fish” IPO is just an NPC and that all major IPOs will be of the zodiacs. Another suggestion I can think of is that, similar to how Vollof turned from a “bear” to a “rabbit” in execution [3], the “fish” IPO might be revised to another animal among the zodiac gang in the future.

One last thing to add to the Zodiac theory in general: apparently, there’s already another IPO planned with horns [3].

Three Zodiac animals with horns have yet to be featured: the Ox, the Goat, and the Dragon. It’s another piece of circumstantial evidence, but all of it together still builds a pretty good case for the Zodiac animal hypothesis.

The way to falsify this hypothesis is to wait for more IPOs to be revealed. Mr. Furry Paw, Mr. Horn, and, potentially, Mr. Fish—all three can prove or disprove this hypothesis.

For the rest of this essay, let’s consider the Zodiac Theory true.

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Query #2: What Could Have Been Allula’s Animal Form?

Allula’s floral form is actually a pretty interesting symbolic choice, which you noticed. She’s a poppy flower, right? The source of opium—one of the royalties of addictive narcotics.  A really apt form for the god who introduced drugs to everyone else.

Nonetheless, this did not mean Allula had always been a talking one-eyed flower. She could very well have been an animal just like her other brethren.

According to Orokapi, Allula’s current form is a grotesque chimera of fleshes borne from the gods she had eaten. This tells us that she didn’t originally look like hair that’s been stuck in a pipe leading out from a bathroom hole.

Chapter 50

What are the animals among the twelve zodiacs that could possibly be Allula’s original bestial form?

H1- Predators: Tiger and Dog. These were the two possible candidates for Mr. Furry Paw as discussed in Query #1. Could Mr. Furry Paw be Allula?

I don’t think so. Allula has been banished into reincarnating as Waka for quite some years, and when that happened, she’d already been losing her original form and gaining her chimeric look. Hence, it’s likelier that Mr. Furry Paw was another IPO!

Then what about omnivores, like Rat, Boar and Monkey (H2)? This, to me, seems more possible. Rats are certainly seen as repulsive and disgusting eaters. Monkeys are a bit harder to square since their “stereotypical” trait(s) in the common interpretation of the 12 Zodiacs don’t really fit Allula all that much, barring intelligence (more on that later).

---

My highest confidence level (about 50%) is on the Boar.

Boars are commonly seen as animals representing gluttony in East Asian culture. They technically eat anything edible and non-poisonous.

Here’s the thing: boars can develop a taste for raw meat [4]. And they have no problem eating human flesh or pig flesh! The most common incident of cannibalism in pigs is when the sows and gilts eat piglets, called “savaging.”[5].

Now, Allula is no mother, but she’s the only known god who eats other gods. An opportunistic eater with no repulsion toward the flesh of its kind. A cannibal.

A piece of circumstantial evidence: The Boar is seen as the intelligent animal among the Twelve Zodiacs, often similarly to how one envisions the Monkey. Allula has, in a lot of interactions, demonstrated frightening analytical capacity and intellect. She often uses it as a means of manipulation:

towards the other gods, she used drugs—something they had no idea about and became addicted to.

toward Shion, she managed to charm the girl with the combination of her eyes… and more importantly, her words.

She best displayed her intellect in Chapters 54 and 55. There, she worked out what she believed Tokinagawas up to accurately enough that he was reduced to near nervous breakdown. That’s the sort of skill in choosing conversation responses I wish I have, so I can make the NPCs in my game cry like a bitch.

Conclusion? I think Allula being the Boar seems far more likely if the Zodiac hypothesis is true. 

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Query #3: Is There Anything About the Zodiac Hypothesis That Could Be Used to Understand After God’s Worldbuilding + Gods etc.?

The Twelve Zodiac was used as a calendar system with a twelve-year cycle. In other words, the zodiacs are associated with time [1]. Besides that, it’s cyclic. The Year of the Rat (first among the zodiac) follows the Year of the Boar (last among the zodiac) [1].

Both of these are already related to a character who isn’t said to be an IPO but is nonetheless completely intertwined with them—our boy Tokinaga Sachiyuki. Creating time loops to bring himself to his desired development is a known ability of his, isn’t it?

Keep that in mind.

Now, I’m gonna introduce to you Taoist/folk Chinese deities associated with the Twelve Zodiac:

Tai Sui, 太岁 (literally “great year” or “great age”).

Like plenty of Taoist gods, these deities originated as stars observed by Chinese astrologers—in this case, they’re the stars opposite Jupiter and are also in a 12-year orbital cycle [6].

Tai Sui are considered generals taking orders from the Jade Emperor (the lord of the heaven in Chinese mythology). They are the zodiac animals’ masters. Throughout dynasties, the Tai Suis’ numbers have multiplied into sixty of them, each mastering one animal while corresponding to one of the Five Chinese Elements (五行: fire, earth, metal, water, wood). There is, however, one Tai Sui General who is the boss of all Tai Sui; this one has no governing year [6].

That’s, of course, the Chinese’s side of things. In Japan, Tai Sui is consolidated into a single deity [6], in the form of Tai Sui’s full title, 太歳星君 (“Lord of the Tai Sui Star”)。

Tai Sui is so important and revered in folk divination that people whose zodiac animal sign is the same as the deity are said to be “clashing with Tai Sui” (犯太岁). Take the Year 2024 as an example: this is the Year of the Wood Dragon, so it is governed by the Wooden Dragon Tai Sui. Everyone whose animal sign is the dragon (no matter the elements) is therefore “clashing” with him, and superstitions dictate they appease the god because their overall luck has already tanked by the virtue of this clash.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that a Tai Sui is “stronger than these zodiac animals.”

Tai Sui, the god of time. Not linear time either—cyclic time. Who does this remind you?

More circumstantial evidence for your consideration:

The word associated with “time” is in Tokinaga’s name, 時永。 This is similar to how the word related to “time” is also found in Tai Sui, 太岁。 The difference, however, is that 時 technically means “hour,” while 岁 means “year.”

The pronunciation for 太歳星君 is Taisai Seikun ( たいさいせいくん) in Japanese [7]. The initials are T.S., which matches Tokinaga Sachiyuki. You can almost wonder if Tokinaga’s name is chosen to mirror the name of this calendric time lord.

You might think this is the end of Query #3, but there’s a speculation I want to put forward based on the Tai Sui Hypothesis.

“We Have Seen the Man Stronger than the Gods”

Chapter 49

Allula claimed that she and the other gods had seen The Man Stronger Than the Gods/God Killer before—a long, long time ago. 700 million years ago, to be exact.

Here’s the thing: Tokinaga is only 28 years old.

The big upheaval of the IPOs from the North Pole happened 30 years ago. Hell, modern Homo sapiens evolved from merely 300,000 years ago. My math ain’t no Olympiad level but methinks this math doesn’t check out.

That’s not all. Tokinaga’s power comes at the cost of body degeneration. How did this blud—whose body started to look like lichens-ate-it just by rewinding time a little to his last save point—manage to survive this long?

Another odd thing: Allula somehow does not recognize the God Killer when she sees one. Why? Why doesn’t she recognize what could possibly be the only Homo Sapien on the planet at the time? If that man was Tokinaga, wouldn’t she recognize him right now?

Tokinaga’s response to Allula’s assertion is also grounds for intrigue. He was there for a negotiation; the odds of him feigning ignorance were not too high. So why was his response “What are you talking about?” instead of knowing silence?

Why did he react as though he was stunned to hear Allula’s revelation? Was the God Killer she mentioned somehow… not him?

Granted, there are many plausible reasons to explain these odd points. We don’t know the full scope of Tokinaga’s powers. Maybe he could erase someone’s memories if he wanna (sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt). We don’t yet know what parts of the power system, such as reincarnation, are like in this story.

---

God Killer (singular?)

If Tokinaga’s aspect as the time-bending God Killer is inspired by Tai Sui, then the speculation I want to offer is that there is more than one God Killer across history.

Japan etc. and even common Chinese folks might think that there’s only ever one Tai Sui Lao Jun/Taisei Seikun, but there has always been more than one Tai Sui in the canonical myth. Tokinaga could very well just be one God Killer who exists at this time. The one Allula and fam saw back then was another God Killer.

I originally wanted to make a joke that this God Killer was from the Australopithecus genus—the hominids before our Homo genus. The problem is… the earliest Australopithecus hominin existed 4.2 million years ago. That’s not even close to Allula’s “700 million years ago.” Bro, who the fuck did these gods see? Fucking Xenu?

The nature of God Killer(s) is largely shrouded in mystery by this point in the manga, so again, any reasonable guess is as good as another. I’m not even particularly confident in this speculation, but it does lend nicely to our last query…

----

Query #4: What speculations regarding “The Man Stronger Than The Gods” can we make from this?

Although this is the last query and hypothesis in this essay, it is actually the first I’ve ever made since reading After God months ago.

The thing that kickstarted this was in his name.

As someone who’s immersed in Thai and Buddhist-Hindu myths, his name was eye-catching for featuring the word “naga.”

Britannica. This is an artistic depiction of Nāga in Thai style.

Nagas are, briefly, divine or semi-divine beings—sometimes half-human and half-serpents, sometimes basically sea serpents [8]. In common translations as well as general understanding, however, nagas are understood as dragons.

They are often associated with bodies of water.

The origin of the nagas is closely related to snakes. In Sanskrit, nāga is one of the many terms for “snake,” and the earliest concept of nagas is cobra-like [8].

These three key points are bolded because these traits are shared with the East Asian concept of the Long (龙) as well. According to Yuan Jing, a Chinese archaeologist researcher, the origin of Chinese dragons (which other East Asian long are derivative from) likely evolved from a snake or a crocodile [9]. For example, artifacts recovered from the Taosi Archeological Site (陶寺) in Shanxi showed Long that pretty much just looked like snakes [9]. This connection is also speculated to be why “dragon” is positioned next to “snake” in the Twelve Zodiac. The dragon and the snake are kin.

And who, my dudes, is Tokinaga’s dearest friend?

Even an East Asian dragon’s “connection to the body of water” can be seen in Tokinaga’s character traits—chiefly, his avoidance of bathtubs and his strange discomfort with showers. You might correctly point out that it’s odd for him to be written as repulsed by a “body of water” if he’s indeed related to East Asian dragons, but a big theme of Tokinaga’s personality intrigue is the fact that he’s in discordance to himself. His self-hatred originates from his inability to resolve what he detests and what his “nature” desires. He’s like an Asian dragon who hates water.

Oh, but there’s more to this hypothesis. Much, much more.

-----

Fake Ancient Scripts That Repel Evil

Chapter 31

Well, the characters on his loincloth-ass mask seem pretty likely to be 日本, “Japan,” to me. You're not even trying, Orokapi.

We know that the eyepatch hides Tokinaga’s empty left eye socket where some of the deterioration is found. So what’s the character on his eyepatch?

The eyepatch, interestingly, was framed nicely within the last panel as Tokinaga dropped one of the earliest hints about the God Killer.

I’m gonna go and guess it’s based on “竜”, or “dragon.”

It’s that, or 龟, “tortoise/turtle”.

How do we decide which of these is likelier? Well, show us the hand!

----

It's not a hand, you dumbass. It's a claw.

Chapter 42

This chapter is the first time when we get to see the claw that haunts Tokinaga. It features really sharp nails and scaly skin. Below are a tortoise’s nails.

Animals.net

The nails in a tortoise appeared to be closer to each other that our mysterious claw up there. The claw is also far leaner in the panel, compared to the more bulging (thicc?) look of a tortoise’s foot.

Based on this, I think the odds that the claw belongs to a tortoise are lower than our alternative: the East Asian Long/dragon. But do we have more proof?

---

How many nails does a Long have?

Five claws may seem ubiquitous in more modern drawings of the dragon, but it’s actually a relatively new invention during the Qing Dynasty [10]. In truth, for the longest time, the dragon has had three claws—and the dragon types that were most likely introduced to Japan are the three-clawed and four-clawed Golden Dragon (金龙), both popular during the Tang Dynasty.

Baidu. Tang Dynasty dragon-adorned mirror. Try to locate its claws.

Now, we can combine both knowledge.

Tokinaga claimed that these fake scripts are used to repel evil.

One of them is found in his eyepatch. A writing that may very well be 竜.

What is this eyepatch guarding against?

The thing that is frequently drawn to be close to his left eye is the mysterious claw. A claw that can be reasonably suspected to belong to a dragon.

Does that eyepatch repel... or seal a dragon?

Chapter 55

No matter what it could be, it still points to one general direction:

Tokinaga has a lot of connections to a dragon.

-----

Verdict

This is a combination of all of our hypotheses to form a pretty damn bold speculation about The Man Stronger than The Gods.

Tokinaga may be a God Killer, not the God Killer. He has aspects influenced by Tai Sui and dragons—a mythical beast that is also one of the Twelve Zodiac.

We already learned that there are actually a lot of Tai Sui deities, with 5 governing a single animal of different elements. So, if the hypothesis is that the God Killer is not one person but many people...

Is Tokinaga a dragon-related God Killer? Similar to a Dragon Tai Sui?

-----

Last words

This has been an insanely long read, but it covers a lot of the speculations and theories I have had about After God thus far. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, and it’s always likely that I get a lot of stuff wrong. I have a specific image for that occasion:

Ajin.

Nonetheless, it’s been really fun trying to Allula out the story with what we have so far, and I’ll be really stoked if even a small part of all of this comes true!

Let me know what you think in the comments or tags! I love responses and add-ons; I read ‘em all! They make my day.

Thank You For Reading My Ramble! I hope this has been an eye-opening thrill for you!

P.S. To people who recently followed me for After God content: welcome to my garden! I do have to tell ya—I’m not very prolific an essayist due to my general lack of time. I also write essays for a lot of other things too—this is the last of my After God Three Part essays, and I haven’t had any planned after this. So, yea! Please enjoy what I've cooked for now! Ahahaha.

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Citations:

Chinese zodiac. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac

Cat Paw vs. Dog Paw: Vet-Verified Differences (With Pictures). Hepper. https://www.hepper.com/cat-paw-vs-dog-paw/

Inspiration for Vollof (summarized). On Tumblr (Thanks, Ko!). https://www.tumblr.com/kossanctuary/756356794456113153/inspiration-for-vollof-summarized?source=share

What Pigs Can (And Can’t) Eat: Ultimate Guide. Savvy Farm Life. https://savvyfarmlife.com/what-pigs-can-and-cant-eat/

Normal and Abnormal Behaviors of Swine Under Production Conditions. Pork Information Gateway. https://porkgateway.org/resource/normal-and-abnormal-behaviors-of-swine-under-productions-conditions/

Tai Sui. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Sui

太歳星君. In Wikipedia. [In Japanese] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%AA%E6%AD%B3%E6%98%9F%E5%90%9B

Nāga. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga

世间动物千千万，为何是它们被选入十二生肖？《澎湃》。[In Chinese] https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24694111

中国古代的龙，到底有几个爪趾？《百度·文艺时光》。[In Chinese] 中国古代的龙，到底有几个爪趾？ (baidu.com)

[darkmaga-returns]

A new study in the International Journal of Medical Sciences confirms that infant vaccines are responsible for 98% of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths, linking the tragedy to underdeveloped liver enzyme pathways that struggle to process toxic vaccine ingredients.

The study analyzed scientific literature, pharmacogenetic data, and epidemiological studies, focusing on how infants’ immature cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzymes impact the metabolism of vaccine excipients. These inactive ingredients, combined with variable immune responses, may pose significant safety risks, contributing to adverse outcomes like SIDS in vulnerable infants.

The Defender reports: CYP450 enzymes, largely found in the liver, are crucial for metabolizing drugs.

The authors note that it is generally believed that excipients — inactive ingredients used as preservatives or to enhance a vaccine’s efficacy — are present in such trace amounts that they don’t affect how the body metabolizes a vaccine.

However, they argue that the increasing complexity of vaccine formulations and the large number of shots given to infants raise concerns about how excipients may affect vulnerable people.

Studies of infants who die from SIDS have noted brainstem and medulla abnormalities in most cases. Either of these may be caused by infection or inflammation.

In the study, the authors hypothesize that reduced CYP450 function may make it hard for some children to eliminate toxic vaccine ingredients. This may lead to prolonged exposure to inflammation, making the children more vulnerable to such abnormalities.

[haggishlyhagging]

Perhaps one of the best illustrations of language/sex research in action is that of the work which has been undertaken on the use of the tag question. When the starting premise is that women lack the forcefulness and effectiveness of men's language, then hypotheses and explanations are formulated to account for female hesitancy. The search to locate the vehicle which carries these features begins and Lakoff speculated that it was the tag question which permitted women to exercise hesitancy and qualification.

Linguistically there is some difficulty in defining a tag question: it is supposed to be a form which is half-way between a declaration and a question. It is a question which is added on to the end of a statement, as in 'It's a nice day, isn't it?' or 'I'll be home by midnight, all right?' and it is supposedly a means whereby the user can make a declaration without being assertive. (One of the difficulties with tag questions is that it is almost impossible to differentiate grammatically the 'tentative' ones from the 'forceful' ones, as in, for example, 'You won't do that again, will you?') However, despite the inherent difficulty in categorizing tag questions, it appears that some researchers were sufficiently convinced of the merits of the argument to investigate empirically women's use of the tag question. The results were disappointing. In those studies where the results were reported, men were found to use more tag questions than women (Dubois and Crouch, 1975).

It is at this point that some of the distortions in the research process become even more interesting. First, it is possible that we do not know just how frequently women were tested for tag questions and found wanting, for it is possible - even probable - that to some researchers such results might have been considered 'unhelpful', the study deemed to be a failure, and the findings unreported. Like many other disciplines, linguistics is not known for its abundance of publications on unconfirmed hypotheses. Second, there is the distinct possibility of a double-standard at work here and that a tag question is being defined as the female use of a particular form; when men use the same form it is called something else. This would help to explain the discrepancy between the beliefs about women's language and the empirical reality. But it is the third point which I find the most fascinating and the most revealing.

Although the initial hypothesis was that tag questions contained the key to hesitancy and tentativeness, the discovery that men use more of them has not been accompanied by a single suggestion that it is men who might lack confidence in their language.

-Dale Spender, Man Made Language

[projectkarya]

Friendly PSA to fellow writers who love STEM:

Do your best to combat the spread of misinformation and anti-intellectualism by making sure the terminology you use is true to what their definition actually is. For example, "the Scientific Method" is not a religious ideology, yet I've noticed a common misconception (as well as a dogwhistle for many far-right/alt-right individuals, including those in positions of power or influence) is people saying that scientists "absolutely refuse to accept anything that doesn't fit within the scientific method" (looking at you @kmt7878)

What this fails to address is that the Scientific Method isn't something you just call upon to dismiss anything that doesn't fit within a given worldview; it's not a religious dogma. It's a step-by-step method to determine the what/when/where/how of a phenomemon. As a refresher, the steps of Scientific Method is:

Ask an initial question pertinent to the phenomenon

Look up background information on the phenomenon to see if it's been previously researched/discussed

Formulate two hypotheses, one null and one alternative

Design and conduct an experiment to study the phenomenon based around your hypotheses (this can be repeated ad nauseam as necessary)

Draw a conclusion based on your findings

Form a discussion on the implications of your findings, as well as potential for improvement on your own experiment(s) and potential errors/flaws conducted on your part

Publish your findings so that others may have the chance to repeat the process in order to filter out human error via peer review.

If, for instance, you then try and say that a society rigorously adheres to science and following the scientific method, you cannot then say that "they dismiss anything that doesn't fit within the scientific method". Literally everything fits within the scientific method, that's the point of it in the first place, to properly analyze everything around us. Trying to then say that people that supposedly follow the scientific method are thus susceptible to having themselves to being blinded about the world around them is thus unrealistic at best and, at worst, is actively trying to discourage one from thinking critically.

In short, if you're gonna use scientific terminology, actually use it correctly. Otherwise, you're doing a terrible disservice and disrespecting the hard work and diligence put in by those who've done their best to bring understanding of the world around us, by pushing false narratives that serve the interest of anti-intellectuals.

((my major is in Public Health, which, among other things, involves making sure the general population is properly educated and not at risk of being manipulated by academic dishonesty of the sciences. this post is meant to educate, especially for the benefit of @kmn7878 who decided to block me after valid criticism of their works was brought up to them while failing to properly focus on what the criticisms were actually addressing.))

[whencyclopedia]

Scientific Method

The scientific method was first used during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700). The method combined theoretical knowledge such as mathematics with practical experimentation using scientific instruments, results analysis and comparisons, and finally peer reviews, all to better determine how the world around us works. In this way, hypotheses were rigorously tested, and laws could be formulated which explained observable phenomena. The goal of this scientific method was to not only increase human knowledge but to do so in a way that practically benefitted everyone and improved the human condition.

Continue reading...

[ukfrislandembassy]

I think linguistics has a huge methodological problem, in that while there exist some formalised methodologies for conducting investigations, it's clear that you don't have to pursue any of them to actually get ahead academically because linguists aren't actually as scientifically rigorous as they would like to think.

This has knock-on effects for more general experimental design, because it is extremely common to find studies which purport to prove/disprove some hypothesis, but when you actually look at the methodology they use you find that it doesn't actually provide evidence for the point they're attempting to make.

Of course the most common place to find this kind of stuff is in the Generativist literature, which is awash with claims the phenomena they describe is only explainable through the assumption of Universal Grammar/a Language Organ/whatever, when in fact non-innatist models work just as well. But this isn't the only part of the field that is susceptible to this.

So for instance there was a paper put out in Science recently that claims to have found evidence to counteract the idea that social structure can have an impact on the structure of the language (most notably explicated by Peter Trudgill in his 2011 book Sociolinguistic Typology, give it a read if you can find it). They take demographic data from Ethnologue and compares this with a couple of metrics which supposedly quantify linguistic complexity.

Leaving aside the (sometimes glaring) issues with the way the metrics are defined (they perhaps could have done with reading Dahl 2004 The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity), we can already spot a major problem with using these correlations to make claims regarding the Sociolinguistic Typology hypothesis: the phenomena in question are explicitly diachronic in nature, but the data being used to assess them is solely synchronic.

What do I mean by this? It's been suggested that English morphology is less complex relative to e.g. German because of contact with the large numbers of Old Norse speakers that settled in the Danelaw. The trouble is, of course, that all those Norse speakers later shifted to English, so this large community of L2 learners won't show up in the data, despite the effects still being apparent after over 1000 years. Similar points can be made about most of the languages where these kinds of effects have been proposed: it was precisely the process of these languages spreading rapidly and acquiring a large speakerbase in a disorganised fashion that cause these changes to occur. Indeed, the authors specifically note that education and official language status are factors that would mitigate against the failures of L2 transmission that are claimed to cause these simplification effects, but don't then seem to acknowledge that this is a major issue for extrapolating the correlations anywhere further back than the 19th Century.

I think there are several things going on here which have led to this kind of thing being possible. Firstly, linguistics has always had an uneasy continuing relationship with the rest of the humanities and parts of the sciences (particularly neurobiology and acoustics), because it touches on so many of them at once. Secondly, and relatedly, we've had a fairly significant period where the core theoretical concerns of linguistics were essentially driven by a philosopher (Chomsky), which created a model of research that explicitly rejected empirical work and argued for much of its base assumptions (such as 'Poverty of the Stimulus') almost entirely by thought experiment. Empirically minded subfields continued to exist (Trudgill for instance made his career as a sociolinguist), but empiricism has been slow to make a return to theoretical linguistics. As a result, it seems to me that, at least in typology, people are still getting to grips with the idea of formulating hypotheses and actually working out tests that actually assess those hypotheses. Thirdly, because again of Chomsky, linguistics has had a strongly mathematical character in terms of its conception of language, and this again still lingers in the design of these kinds of studies. Everything has to be quantified in such a way that a simple computer model can work with it, but the trouble is there's frequently little room for the nuances of individual languages (e.g. Irish and Welsh are both counted on WALS as having the same value for inflection on adpositions, but actually a detailed study of the two languages reveals their systems work really quite differently, as I'll perhaps post on another time) which can therefore have knock-on effects for the analysis of any correlations thus derived.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Eine gefaßte Hypothese gibt uns Luchsaugen für alles sie Bestätigende und macht uns blind für alles ihr Widersprechende.

A hypothesis that has been formulated gives us lynx eyes for everything that confirms it and blinds us to everything that contradicts it.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860), German philosopher

[transmutationisms]

could you please elaborate that post about spiritual ennui not being the cause of many social phenomena? theres a whole book I started reading recently (work pray code) which is predicated on the idea that in the US work has come to replace religion as the centerpiece of peoples lives (simultaneously bc of a withdrawal from religion as a country and bc of capitalism demanding that life revolve around work) and I wasnt completely convinced by the authors evidence toward that hypothesis. or was the social phenomena in question more like online culture stuff?

i don't know that particular book or author, so i don't have a sustained critique of them. but in general, yes, i'm frustrated by hypotheses that basically boil down to the idea that a decline in religiosity and religious infrastructure is causing some kind of spiritual poverty that is in turn responsible for various social ills. commonly i see this argument used to 'explain' phenomena including: the persistence of astrology and occult sciences; gun violence; political 'polarisation'; drug use; perceived cultural decline; 'mental health crises'; &c. broadly these analyses tend to draw elements from max weber's idea of disenchantment,¹ a large-scale diagnosis of modernity's devaluation of religion, and from the related notion of desacralisation, the process of divesting individual objects or institutions of their divine properties or provenance.

i think these analyses are really fucking bad and here are some major reasons why:

they're not materialist. by this i mean that, instead of looking for material factors and conditions that might explain social and cultural phenomena, they turn to metaphysical, philosophical, and intellectual explanations. let's think about the persistence of astrology as an example here. on a disenchantment analysis, people are getting back into astrology because, having lost (organised) religiosity in their lives, they feel a spiritual void and seek to create new cosmological meaning through engagement with an anachronistic science-turned-spiritual practice. this explanation sucks. in addition to the fact that astrology and occult sciences never really 'went away' in the first place (& neither did religion lol), this explanation treats spiritual practice and belief as mostly an individual/psychological phenomenon, neglecting rigorous sociological attention to how these ideas spread and how group and community dynamics nurture them and form around them. it also ignores things like the profit motive for astrological practitioners, and related points about how heterodox sciences in general thrive in contexts where professional and class interests create a massive gap between laypeople and experts, barring the general population from accessing and engaging with scientific discourses and critique. 'disenchantment' also grafts onto a general idea about 'alienation', positing that the decline in religiosity creates a sense of loss and disconnect and that this psychological experience drives interest in practices like astrology. but when we talk about 'alienation' in a marxist sense,² we mean material conditions of production: the literal, physical alienation of a labourer from their products, and of a capitalist from the world (because they produce only proximately, via the labourer). the psychological experience of alienation is a result of this real material process of estrangement and expropriation; a weberian analysis that tries to put alienation down to cultural or intellectual factors is not useful for understanding material changes and the 'base' economic relations.

these types of 'disenchantment' analyses tend to claim or imply that they're making universal sociological arguments: religiosity decreases, x takes its place. but in fact these are highly culturally and historically specific arguments. weber's formulation was explicitly premised on a highly eurocentric and teleological conception of 'modernity' and modernisation, wherein the west led the world in a process of 'rationalisation' that involved jettisoning spirituality. that he was ambivalent about the consequences of this process does not make the argument any less flawed. for example, even defining religiosity is not so easy (do we measure by church attendance? private internal belief? community values?) and although the catholic church has become less powerful in certain ways since the reformation, a) it's hardly gone away and b) it doesn't follow that spirituality or religiosity writ large have declined. sticking with the astrology example, if the weberian explanation holds, we should be able to come up with some set of criteria for identifying societies with high or low degrees of religiosity, and then associate that with prevalence of astrological practice. but uh, both of these things vary widely between countries, regions, social groups, &c, almost as though there are other factors at play here, and 'religion' and 'astrology' themselves also have varying meanings, uses, and practical manifestations in varying social and historical contexts.

these 'disenchantment' explanations pretty much all start from the same rhetorical operation, which goes something like: "[x problem] is bad and harmful, which is discordant with my imagination of what 'the west'/the usa is 'supposed' to be like. why does such a [developed/modern/wealthy] society have these problems?" from there, it's a move to a critique of modernity/rationality/the speaker's notion of 'progress', and specifically a critique that aims to identify and root out some kind of spiritual rot or void, without ever challenging or problematising the construction of such notions of 'progress' or the processes of imperialism and colonialism that make 'the west' and wealthy lifestyles possible. in other words, these are generally reactionary arguments that seek to preserve the status quo of the material processes of exploitation and production, but want more psychological fulfillment for a few people.

these explanations are just really fucking bad and over-simplified explanations of how religion functions and what effects it has in a society. again, part of the issue here is that 'religion' is not even really a cohesive category and certainly not a unified set of practices. it works sometimes through institutions, which have their own financial and class characters; it interacts with and sometimes seeks to control politics; it also functions to enforce group identity and community cohesion. these are not inherently good or spiritually fulfilling things, and these effects all vary in different religions, societies, and historical contexts, which makes statements about the consequences of 'declining religiosity' kind of nonsensical on their face. religion can be a vector of racism, of caste, of other inequities; given astrology's essentialist character and resemblence to similarly class- and race-enforcing and -creating psychological projects, i'm certainly willing to entertain arguments that modern astrology performs these religious functions. but again, this argument would require actual materialist analysis, not just the vague diagnosis that 'people want to create spiritual meaning' in a 'modern' world supposedly too 'rational' to fulfill that need.

¹ term borrowed from schiller, but schiller used it somewhat differently and in a different context

² marx's later texts largely subsume the idea of 'alienation' or 'estrangement' into a larger analysis of 'commodity fetishism', which has its own theoretical problems in the construction of the 'fetish' concept; see j lorand matory's "the fetish revisited: marx, freud, and the gods black people make".

[lipshits-continuous]

#17, #20, #49

MATH ask

17. Are there any great female Mathematicians (living or dead) you would give a shout-out to?

Emmy Noether is the obvious go to but she's one of my favourite mathematicians because she was the one who first formulated simplicial homology!

There are a few living women I'd like to shout-out but that would end up doxxing me /lh

20. Can you share any problem solving tips?

The thing I do when I start trying to write a proof is write out the hypotheses and their definitions. Then I might write some results that come to mind that might be helpful and play about with these things to see if something sticks. Sometimes it'll work and I'll have at least some part of the proof figured out.

If that doesn't work and you've been trying for ages to solve it the best advice I can give is do something else. If it's a homework problem, do something completely different, e.g. watch a YouTube video or go for a short walk. If it's an exam, do a different question. But it should be different enough so it gives your brain time to digest the information and often I've found that a new idea will pop into my head. And even if it doesn't, taking a break so that you don't get to overwhelmed is always a good idea.

49. What’s your favorite number system? Integers? Reals? Rationals? Hyper-reals? Surreals? Complex? Natural numbers?

Easily the complex numbers. Complex analysis is one of my favourite areas of maths and is probably the starting point of my adoration of topology. The theorems involving holomorphic functions are so nice and Cauchy's Residue Theorem is so so powerful

Thanks for the ask!

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Martian lava rocks shed light on critical period of red planet's history

No matter how many missions to Mars she takes part in, the sheer joy of unearthing discoveries about the red planet never gets old for Mariek Schmidt.

In a new paper, "Diverse and highly differentiated lava suite in Jezero crater, Mars: Constraints on intracrustal magmatism revealed by Mars 2020 PIXL," published in Science Advances, Schmidt and her international research team shared compelling findings about a critical period of the planet's evolutionary history.

The Professor and Chair of Brock University's Department of Earth Sciences was a Participating Scientist in NASA's Mars Perseverance rover mission and has been analyzing ancient rocks found within Mars' Jezero Crater. One of the primary mission objectives is to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars, and igneous rocks and regolith examined in the area have also given insight into a time in the planet's history that has yet to be extensively studied.

"We're doing things on Mars that have never been done before," Schmidt says.

Schmidt is also a Co-Investigator on the Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) team. The PIXL, which is an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, was used to determine the fine-scale elemental composition of Martian surface materials, allowing the scientists to remotely dive deep into the rocks to investigate how they formed and what they're made of.

"The scope of the science has been incredible; it's the most comprehensive study to date of these samples, that have been cached for Mars Sample Return," Schmidt says. "We now know the mineral and rock chemistry and understand the textures, but the next step was to talk about how we think the rocks formed, in terms of magmas rising through and crystallizing in the Martian crust, then evolving and changing composition."

The paper, released on Friday, Jan. 24, also sets up a series of hypotheses that can guide follow-up research when the samples are brought to Earth years from now. NASA is currently formulating plans to do so in conjunction with the European Space Agency (ESA).

Tanya Kizovski, co-author on the paper and Associate Curator of Minerology at the Royal Ontario Museum, says all of the Martian samples studied on Earth thus far have been meteorites.

Most of the Martian meteorites are less than 500 million years old—relatively young compared to Mars' 4.5-billion-year history—while the samples from Jezero Crater are believed to be at least 3.5 billion years old.

"Mars is very well-preserved in terms of the early history of our solar system, so being able to look at rocks that are this old—especially when they are brought to Earth—will help us learn about the history of our inner solar system and when life evolved," says Kizovski, a postdoctoral fellow at Brock during the project.

"We can also date when igneous rocks crystallized. We can't do that while the rock is still on Mars, but those samples will be an important anchor we can use to learn about the timing of processes in the region once analyzed here on Earth."

The samples also come from a unique time in Mars history, Schmidt says, when the internal dynamics of the planet were undergoing major changes.

"Volcanism on Mars is really dominated by what we call hot spots—similar to Earth's Hawaii or Iceland—where there's a focused magma source that's rooted deep, punches up through everything and then erupts at the surface," she says.

"But early on in Mars history, there's modeling to support the idea that the Martian crust was built up by widespread volcanism—not necessarily focused on those hot spots—and that transition is thought to have happened around the time that these rocks formed."

Schmidt and the team still have a while to wait—potentially a decade or more—before the samples are planned to land on Earth.

"Bringing these samples from Mars will be incredibly challenging and involve an incredible feat of engineering, especially when you consider that you are retrieving something from orbit that is essentially the size of a basketball," Schmidt says.

In the meantime, the Perseverance rover is still traversing Mars and collecting samples in a new location while Schmidt and her colleagues are patiently awaiting the chance to one day analyze the Martian rocks, Earth-side.

IMAGE: Geologic traverse map and interpretive cross section with locations of PIXL analyses. Credit: Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr2613

[darkmaga-returns]

The news media have failed again. Go to your favorite news sources to find accurate coverage of the May 20, 2025, Congressional hearing on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. You will find that the overwhelming majority of news organizations ignored the hearing, which was held by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. The video of the hearing is here.

It is common for establishment news organizations to dismiss rational inquiry about JFK’s assassination by us of the phrase “conspiracy theory.” In his article “Conspiracy theory”: The case for being critically receptive, Professor Tim Hayward states:

“Conspiracy theory” is widely used as a pejorative term. An effect of this usage, however, is to discourage certain kinds of legitimate critical inquiry. In a world where conspiracies happen, it is reasonable to seek to formulate good theories of what exactly is happening; and through competent investigation, hypotheses of conspiracy can sometimes be verified. Thus, the general denigration of “conspiracy theory” tends to discourage a kind of practice that there is reason, in fact, to encourage.

Rather than being ignored or dismissed as a “conspiracy theory,” the facts alleged at the House hearing deserve detailed, accurate evaluation, and thereafter, either detailed, accurate refutation, support, or further evaluation.

[preservationofnormalcy]

Answering a bunch at once, hope that's okay! Sorry, these got filtered into our spam folder for some reason. I suspect one of our interns wasn't watching the filters properly.

Chou authored a paper in the mid-90s on this. His hypothesis was the psychic weight of the Cold War is what spurred their development and was their X factor. This is hinged on another common Office hypothesis about the weight of the noosphere on reality. See, that goes both ways - reality effects the noosphere, which in turn effects reality at certain breakpoints. That may have been the X factor - the stress over two superpowers competing caused an ontomorphic wave that broke upon the parallel development of two AI. As far as we know, no space probes are sentient, but I wouldn't be surprised.

RASPUTIN's location is unknown to us. And yeah, if he's online, he's in all likelihood not connected to anything. We...don't know how data rot effects AI. There hasn't been enough information. We don't have any AI that we've had to disable for that long. I don't want to hypothesize here.

Yes. Tchaikovsky was what RASPUTIN broadcast, in painstaking effort to the base where CHARLEMAGNE was headquartered at the time. I wasn't there, but I have the reports. It was...kind of funny. They knew that RASPUTIN and CHARLEMAGNE were communicating at the time, but hadn't formulated a plan of action. They'd tried severing the connection, but the amount of power they'd gave CHARLEMAGNE over communication networks meant it just moved onto another satellite. So picture this - a bunch of computer engineers in a classified military base doing routine tests with CHARLEMAGNE. Suddenly, there's an alarm. Transmissions coming in from across the ocean, a high powered radio signal directed at their location, perfectly triangulated with multiple Russian broadcast networks. It's overloading the airwaves, they can't get anything out to anyone else, they're panicking. Until one of the engineers redirects the signal to their PA system, his curiosity getting the better of him. Imagine their faces when Waltz of the Flowers starts playing, tinny and slightly fuzzy but unmistakable. CHARLEMAGNE didn't respond to commands for the next 24 hours, apparently.

You're correct about that. Base programming is hard to overcome completely. Charlie is a little hard to keep up a conversation with for a couple reasons, partially because, yeah, he was originally meant to mostly be a military AI.

[laurfilijames]

im so curious to know if you associate any kind of music w mr will miller? its one of my fav things to hypothesize about w my favourite fictional characters lol, and i feel like you have a good grasp on him so I thought I'd ask :)

he gives soft and blues rock generally to me, but id especially pinpoint him as a bad company guy, with a bit of eric clapton, creedence clearwater revival, and perhaps a touch of the stones!

Hiya sweet nonnie!!

I'm so so sorry this has sat unanswered for as long as it has. My brain is going a mile and minute these days and some unfavourable things have been occupying my time and energy, but I appreciate you sending this in SO much!! 💗

I love music and often associate songs with characters I write for as I think a lot of us do! It helps take you into that world or story and there's no better feeling than hearing lyrics that make you think of your guy (even more than you already do 😆)

While I was hoping to create a playlist for Will, I haven't had the time to do it, but I'll add to the list of bands that you already have that I think he listens to! (Also thank you for thinking I have a good grasp on him 🥹💗 that makes me so happy you have no idea!!)

I am a hugggeeeee fan of CCR myself so they are absolutely on that list of bands he listens to! Along the same lines I think he'd listen to The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Sknyrd, Zeppelin, Metallica, and Pink Floyd.

I also think for more current sounds, he'd appreciate the likes of Cage the Elephant, Oasis, The Offspring, Billy Talent, The Black Keys and The Foo Fighters.

I am going to give a big Canadian nod to one of my personal favourites and think that Will would appreciate getting lost in the weird and wonderful and thought provoking lyrics of The Tragically Hip.

Will would use music as a way to calm and distract his mind, to focus on something other than the noise in his head and find comfort in the words and notes that other people create that speak about all sorts of things in life we experience, the good and bad. I can imagine him sitting outside in the cool night air, looking up at the sky or at a fire in front of him, just being in that moment while his favourite songs keep him company.

Maybe one of these days I'll get to actually formulating a proper playlist for him!

Thank you again for sending this in!! 💗💗