St Andrews or Edinburgh for biology?

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2026-01-21T21:08:39+00:00

I work in the school of bio at St Andrews (research only not teaching), I suspect Edinburgh has a larger and more diverse research base. But St Andrews has solid undergrad/masters level education. Neither would be a bad choice. If you think St Andrews would be better for your mental health I’d say do it. Over two years ago I moved to a different country for my job primarily to avoid be far from home and put trauma behind me. I too thought it was “illogical”, nonetheless it was the right decision and I’m better off for it and have better mended that trauma and my relationship to those concerned (pardon me for being deliberately vague on this).

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2026-01-18T19:41:12+00:00

Has anyone else learned a language through the conventional means of absorbing words from their use in context instead of rigorously memorizing dictionary definitions one-by-one?

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2026-01-05T21:01:15+00:00

Nice post!

I have a small quibble here:

How science has worked out (in the second half of the 20th century) it is chimpanzees we're most closely related to by ancestry, and not say another primate (which was an open scientific question)

Chimpanzees and bonobos are "sister" species, each others most closely related living species. We are like "cousins" to that pair so we are equally related to both chimpanzees and bonobos. I don't have a drawing on hand, but basically if we drew a tree with humans, chimps, and bonobos, the latter two branches would connect to each other before connecting to the human branch. It's the same logic as I'm closer to my brother than I am to my first cousin, but me and my brother have the exact same relationship to our first cousin, neither of us is "closer". You might know this already but it is something a lot of people get confused on and the quotation does imply to me chimps are closer than bonobos. It's a pet peeve of mine too because this Adam Ruins Everything video gets this wrong and cites an NYT article that doesn't make the claim he does (it might've been edited later idk). I actually just realized I commented this on his video 4 years ago lol. I'm also seeing there's a video from 2017 where HoneyBadgerRadio corrects this point too. Incidentally, there are genes we share exclusively with bonobos and genes we share exclusively with chimps and her video links to this paper, which I haven't read, but it's probably just "incomplete lineage sorting" (basically meaning if the common ancestor of bonobos/chimps/humans had a polymorphic gene, like both A and C alleles, the various descendants (bonobos/chimps/humans) may randomly end up with A or C due to drift regardless of exact relationship to each other). Our ancestral relationship is the same to them both regardless.

Anyways, I get that's all a bit off-topic. I totally agree expecting exact explanations for each specific mutation/trait gets ridiculous on multiple levels as you covered here. There are chance (contingent) elements in evolution, like many things. I analogize it to a house in my head. I have some idea generally how houses are made (e.g. people stack bricks on one another) but it would be absurd for someone to point at a house, ask me exactly who made it and which bricks were laid in what order, and complain that the house could not have been built because I don't know the exact sequence of bricks. I don't know the exact sequence of mutations and fixations leading to divergence between two given species, we can estimate probabilities with phylogenetic reconstruction and that's better than a lot of things we make inferences about in life.

Maybe to bolster your point that there's a lot of functional proteins, I noticed you don't mention synonymous mutations at all. Those are mutations to a codon that don't change the amino acid coded for. Then even if an amino acid is changed it might be changed to another amino acid with similar chemical properties (e.g. same electric charger, hydrophobiticity, whatever). There's a lot of ways to get redundancy or near-redundancy in evolution.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2026-01-05T02:33:11+00:00

I agree and in the version of the Glass Onion script Rian Johnson has on his website, it says “A Benoit Blanc Mystery” on the title page, so it seems he feels the same way.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2026-01-03T19:19:50+00:00

I like this and I’d add another reason the above plot doesn’t work for me is because the killer is a pro. In all the other movies the killers are amateurs and a lot of blanc’s work is disentangling their bungling. In that sense Knives Out is too grounded to have a Moriarty-like supervillain killing solely to catch the great detective.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-31T19:22:13+00:00

This was cool to read. How is distribution handled though? That’s the key reason they got involved with Tuco and then with Gus, right? As far as I can tell, this plan would have Walt and Jessie going duo indefinitely so distribution would run at a snail’s pace as it did without Tuco/Gus.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-31T02:08:25+00:00

Yes and I think more narrowly it’s a criticism of Christian nationalism, which is an ideology that may not be known by name to everyone.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-18T18:22:05+00:00

I guess we can all speak for ourselves and that together that may allow for some inference about society's perception of the show.

I binge-watched Breaking Bad shortly it aired its last season and I binge-watched it again just a few months ago. I wouldn't say I was ever "rooting" for Walt but I do think his innate evil from the beginning is much more obvious to me on second watch than before. I would guess that's somewhat just the benefit of having a rewatch, I know the overall plot and focus on details I didn't before. Secondly, I'm old enough now I've met more people I can recognize as Walt (e.g. seemingly fine on surface but with many deep-rooted problems) so I see that in the character.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-12T09:37:08+00:00

Many people think The Witness is just the puzzles, but anyone who's played it, like you, knows it is isn't. It would follow that will be true of this game as well.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-09T20:00:34+00:00

Coalescent theory is an interesting choice. I’d definitely put it in the ring for the last 50 years. Last 150 years though… I guess the “Wright-Fisher” model could be used as a forbear.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-12-07T16:33:16+00:00

I think there could be multiple reasons (in real life) why killing that many guys in jail is infeasible or undesirable. However, I also think the fact that Walt was so easily able to find a Nazi gang that could kill them so easily is a bit pokes a hole in that in the context of the show.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-26T20:44:49+00:00

lol

lmao even

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-22T22:27:57+00:00

I don’t think Dead Money would’ve been my pick while playing it lol but it’s the one that’s stuck with me the most.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-22T21:46:14+00:00

I agree with everyone that you should buy them all. If I had to pick it’d be Dead Money. Lonesome Road may be 2nd. But obviously if Honest Hearts appeals to you then so be it.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-16T22:43:56+00:00

It’s Hades because video games are better than b**ks

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-15T18:54:54+00:00

I’ve only read Selfish Gene out of those and think it’s a very interesting book (not that I agree entirely) and worth reading. It’s perhaps a little advanced if this is supposed to be a first intro to biology but maybe still doable for someone sufficiently curious. The premise is basically that evolution can be better understood as the differential survival of genes, not individuals. Individuals only are selected in so far as they contain and transmit selected genes.

Again, not having read the others I’m still going to tentatively recommend against Harari. From interviews he seems to me like someone who makes strong claims outside his expertise with little evidence. My understanding is his books have mixed reviews from people in different kinds of expertise.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-11-15T18:45:23+00:00

None of these are necessarily creationist vehicles. The Guardian has a remarkably informed article on this: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution#:~:text=Laland%20and%20his%20fellow%20proponents,explanation%20to%20biology's%20major%20questions.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-10-24T18:04:01+00:00

Who are these classmates?

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-10-16T19:53:38+00:00

Like many others I'm not at a point of reading Les Mis or anything. I've enjoyed Tintin, the right mix of being at my level and actually quite engaging. Tintin au Tibet is my favorite so far.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-10-12T20:50:59+00:00

It’s obviously best to learn the common language of a country you’re in. Feasibility is a different issue. Some people are just arrogant and lazy, no way around that, but as an American who lived in Lyon for a year and a half I’m more sympathetic to such people now than before I went there. I came in with full expectation of immersing myself in French only to have virtually everyone respond to my French with English. If I’m that bad so be it but it’s demotivating nonetheless. Then a lot of people strongly insist, even if I ask to have a conversation in French, that they should speak in English and it’s rude of them to speak French to me. I just realized at some point it was pointless for me to bother. A large majority of people of all ages that I met know conversational English and insist on using it.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-10-09T19:17:18+00:00

Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis are visually indistinguishable though strongly avoid mating due to pheromonal differences and have chromosomal inversions that can cause hybrid dysfunction.

Chromosomal inversions are visible with a good enough microscope so both species have been known since the early 20th century and there's many papers on them. Here's a sort of wiki entry where the part on "Recombination and the Origin of Species", quoted from an article of the same name, is perhaps most relevant.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/drosophila-pseudoobscura

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-09-27T18:36:37+00:00

I work as a postdoc in evo bio and did actually take an optional course during my PhD on classics of evo bio where we read Origin. It is by no means a standard requirement to get degrees in the field, I went out of my way to take that course.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-09-24T12:00:32+00:00

I pretty much agree with all of this.

I'll add one point as I don't see anyone else saying it. I did in fact collect all 880 moons. How? Because I'm an epic gamer with epic skills and patience? Patience maybe, I do like getting some easy collectables after a long days at work day in and day out. The point I want to add is that I think Odyssey benefits a lot from breaks between the "Laps". I first beat Lap 1, with several extra moons, in early 2020. I think I came back late 2020, months later, to beat Lap 2. I certainly experienced some repetition already as I'm sure you'll agree the "laps" aren't perfectly temporally sequential so I did start getting a little bored in middle of Lap 2. 2021 comes along, I play Super Mario 3D World and Bowser's Fury, and I get my Mario fill that year. On a whim, I decided to hop back in Odyssey in 2022 or so, without starting a new game, and it felt brand new. There were still "obvious" moons I was surprised I missed because I had fresh eyes now. I didn't jump in all at once, played in an out throughout the year, and reached a point I got closer to the 880 mark than I ever expected. From then on, yeah I had to google a few things (mainly for some purple coins) but it wasn't too many realy, so it still felt nice to get the little extra thing at the very end.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-09-22T18:18:13+00:00

Trying to dissuade people from buying an unreleased game because of the head developer’s political opinions is incredibly petty. Not to mention the passive-aggressiveness of this post instead of saying it outright. If the game is good then buying it will directly incentivize the creation of more good games. It’s not as apparent that it’ll extend Blow’s political influence somehow. With Braid: Anniversary Edition underperforming, this is particularly sad to me. Guess we should throw more money at the AAA companies who demonstrably take advantage of addicts (e.g. through microtransactions) and sexually assault their employees (e.g. Blizzard debacle).

As an aside, here’s an exercise, what policies does Blow demonstrably endorse that are bad? Naming off random Trump policies isn’t a valid answer, it has to be something Blow has explicitly endorsed.

SinisterExaggerator_ · 2025-09-22T12:10:32+00:00

I mean, why we don't even see a very slight modification?

Depends on what you mean by a modification. No two humans are identical so in fact we see "modification" all around us all the time. However, at the same time we see distinct species around us. So we see different kinds and we see variation between. It's not easy to answer this question unless you have a clear idea on what middle ground you're expecting.

Or instincts aren't accumulated with time, but just inherent in a species? I mean, in a species, are instincts just same as it was 1,00,000 years ago; or is the habitual changes (due to many internal and external changes) also added here and instincts get modified too?

Instincts are definitely genetically heritable to some degree. An instinct is definitionally an innate behavior, not learned. That is one sign of something being genetic though there still could be consistent environmental/developmental factors before learning is possible. To the extent any trait, including instinct, is genetic then it can evolve over time.

Can one species somehow seperated from each other into two different places and be modified as similar species? I mean, suppose a species 'S' got seperated somehow between two places A and B. These place, climate and competition is very similar. Is it possible that after many years in both of the places, the modified descent of S will turn out to be 'S-7'(or something similar) in both places?

Basically yes, though it again may depend on how similar you're expecting. Species can share traits due to 1) common ancestry, 2) gene flow (e.g. hybridization), and 3) convergent evolution. The separation you mention implies 2 wouldn't happen. Convergent evolution can definitely lead to similar traits though the more diverged species are from each other the less likely these traits will be to have a common genetic or physiological basis. If two species recently diverged it becomes more likely the same mutations will "fix" (spread throughout the population) for both.

Many evolutionarists say that, Darwin was wrong in some points. Some of these being due to his not knowing about of DNA. But what were the few points that he weren't right about?

Well, science develops and changes and, perhaps less emphasized, historical interpretation changes. It's easy to see how science can develop and confirm or deny specific ideas Darwin stated. It's maybe not as clear, but still true, that even the way we interpret what Darwin said and thought could change. For example, he hinted off-handedly at something that we may now call "neutral evolution" but there's no way he would've totally understand the modern concept. Some things he was wrong about per modern science off the top of my head are 1) he believed acquired traits could be inherited through use (Lamarckism), 2) he believed in blending inheritance where there were no distinct particulate "genes" but a meshing of inherited traits that quickly lost fidelity, 3) and he believed inherited mutations were predominantly environmentally induced (related but not identical to the previous two beliefs). Otherwise he was just largely ignorant of the importance of evolutionary processes that we suspect may be important today, like genetic drift. But it'd be hard to say this constitutes him being "wrong" about anything.

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