All ultimate explanations are bizarre

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Frontiers in Communication: Memes are effective political tools

The following is the abstract for this article. “Internet memes are one of the latest evolutions of ‘leaflet’ propaganda and an effective tool in the arsenal of digital persuasion. In the past such items were dropped from planes, now they find their way into social media across multiple platforms and their territory is global. Internet memes can be used to target specific groups to help build and solidify tribal bonds. Due to the ease of creation, and their ability to…

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Atlas Hugged

The renowned evolutionary biologist DS Wilson discusses his novel Atlas Hugged refuting Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I have an e-copy if anyone wants a copy. An excerpt: “My sequel to Atlas Shrugged is titled Atlas Hugged and its protagonist is John Galt’s grandson. Ayn Rand was not a character in her novel, but since anything goes in fiction, I could transport her into mine as Ayn Rant, John I’s lover and John III’s grandmother. Rant’s son, John II, parlays her Objectivist philosophy into a world-destroying libertarian media empire….

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Human large-scale cooperation as a product of competition between cultural groups

Article in Nature Communications, February 2020. Since this topic repeatedly comes up in our discussions. The abstract: “A fundamental puzzle of human evolution is how we evolved to cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers in transient interactions. Group-level selection on culturally differentiated populations is one proposed explanation. We evaluate a central untested prediction of Cultural Group Selection theory, by assessing whether readiness to cooperate between individuals from different groups corresponds to the degree of cultural similarity between those groups. We documented…

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Clinical studies of vitamin D and Covid-19

See these studies that indicate vitamin D deficiency makes for worse results and recommend taking a supplement as a preventative and treatment. “Analysis of vitamin D level among asymptomatic and critically ill COVID-19 patients and its correlation with inflammatory markers.” Scientific Reports 10, November 2020. “Effect of calcifediol treatment and best available therapy versus best available therapy on intensive care unit admission and mortality among patients hospitalized for COVID-19: A pilot randomized clinical study.” The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and…

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Evolutionary processes work at multiple levels

To shape whole communities. Article at Phys.org. The introduction: “Evolutionary theory has long held that natural selection largely operates at the level of individuals. Findings from Northern Arizona University researchers, recently published in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, suggest that selection can also occur at multiple levels to shape whole communities. This multi-level selection arises from the interactions of key species that cascade to alter communities and ecosystems.”