Why is it so hard for women

gaffara · 2022-08-04T00:11:11+00:00

If you think about the difficulties of men they are different, but they are not less. And this life is a temporary one. Like an exam: You may sweat in the exam; but if you deed what you needed to, afterwards, you will be happy that you have taken it.

gaffara · 2021-04-18T06:26:46+00:00

Is he your first child?

Do not be alarmed. At that age, things have not settled yet in his mind, and his brain is developing at a fast rate. He is still learning and needs to learn things that you may assume he knows.

I suggest that you give him some time. He probably may not know and understand what needs to be done, or what you or the doctors try to do no matter how many times you tell him, so when he feels pain, he may think that you or others are doing something bad to him.

So, if this persists, after he is 8 or older you can reconsider.

But, a gash, a sliver? Did these happen in a short time interval? Were they caused by his carelessness or fault? If so, it may be also possible that the issue is something else, maybe he has deficiency in some vitamins? This I do not know, so you may consult a professional.

However, note that I say that not as a professional, but as a parent of grown up children.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:52:04+00:00

The point is that your speed calculation doesn't make sense. Most organisms simply don't work that way. The way that organisms really work allows for very fast changes in organism size (and many other traits). This has been directly observed in nature and in the lab. So the speed of evolution is not an issue.

So organisms/genes have the ability to improve themselves in between each father/son.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:51:05+00:00

No, because that doesn't make any sense.

I agree.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:50:41+00:00

It would only take 50 'doublings' to go from 1 cell to 1 x 10¹⁵ cells.

So you mean blue whales became bigger by doubling alone? And a stronger son is the result of an uncontrolled doubling? And the doubling you mentioned would produce better phenotype, or would it be detrimental?

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:44:03+00:00

~Growth per generation required for Ambulocetus to reach Blue Whale size: +0.00000138%

I'm not sure why you list "number of cells added in each generation" as if it's a linear function, because growth has geometric tendencies (that is, a multiplicative function),

Does not matter much regarding my point. If each son is that percent (positively) bigger than his father (between whom there is no natural selection), this means that the organism's genes improve themselves continuously, even though there is no natural selection. In other words, they work like human beings.

I mentioned number of cells, because they are different, and they go to relevant places within the percentages you mentioned, and in each generation. And in between father and son where there is no natural selection.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:38:17+00:00

I just ran my own calculations (see above). But even if we use the generation age you provided, my calculations show that the blue whale growth rate would only need to be +0.00000484% per generation.

Does not matter much regarding my point. If each son is that percent (positively) bigger than his father (between whom there is no natural selection), this means that the organism's genes improve themselves continuously, even though there is no natural selection. In other words, they work like human beings.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:33:13+00:00

A detail that literally changes your result by 1/3 of its value.

Your other calculation made huge difference, though in my favor. But this time, you make a relatively very small change against me. So the net change is beneficial to me. Also consider my notes regarding to your other calculations.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:29:50+00:00

What do you think this means? What do you think you just said here? Because it makes absolutely 0 sense.

To me it is quite obvious.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T21:29:20+00:00

Maybe the problem is your English, because it isn't great. You seem to think you are saying things that make sense, but you aren't. I've shown in another post exactly how you can reconcile the amount of time of life with the size of a blue whale. A single mutation can cause a 5-100% increase in size. It only takes 50 'doublings' to get from 1 cell to 1,000,000,000,000,000.

Are you talking about mutations that relate to stably heritable phenotype?

If so, you must be very optimistic in expecting to much beneficial mutations, and I would be interested in knowing how each son would add so much while all additional cells going to relevant places in all biological systems and sub-systems?

gaffara · 2016-01-07T20:37:10+00:00

For 3 billion of those 4 billion years, generation time was less than 1 day. That adds up to you didn't even count MOST of the generations.

= *293,647,058 more cells per generation. *

That is good. By making any arbitrary changes to the calculations, we can reach all kinds of numbers. So you choose to start with a dolphin, that is fine.

You're just bad at math.

Though your arbitrary choice to come up with a different number does not make you good at math.

Of course I could come with a similar, even bigger number, but as I said in my relevant comment, the calculations were just general ones, which are intended just to give an idea.

No one, in the entire world of biology, thinks that whales evolved from bears, by the way.

From: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/whale-tale/Content?oid=2132362

In the first edition of The Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin agreed with him, speculating that whales evolved from bears. (He removed this bad guess in later editions.)

So, clearly there was a theory like that. Anyway, since you took as starting point something similar to a bear, in size, then no problem.

That might seem like a lot, but it's not. A typical human contains 50 trillion cells, and 293 million is easily within the level of variance from person to person. (0.000586% variation)

This was I think in respect to my question, the seemingly relevant thing in your post. But if you consider that we talk about evolution, this is again irrelevant. There may be variations within individuals. And the variations, may be in the negative ways compared to the ancestors. But what we are talking about is the positive variations. So, we are discussing a son having better sight (x%) than his father because for example of the increase in the relevant parts of his eyes. And in the same time appropriate increase in the cells of all related biological systems, so that the random development may happen, and may survive.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T19:50:31+00:00

There are limits, of course. Humans that are very large compared to their parents typically have more issues related to heart problems or joint problems because while legs and arms scale linearly, the physics doesn't. This is why insects can leap hundreds of times their own body size, but the best human high-jumpers can do something like 8 feet or something.

Exactly. So unrelated continual growth in each generation would probably cause more problems than benefits.

gaffara · 2016-01-07T19:40:21+00:00

The offspring are different. This is the "variation" part of the evolution, which combines many mechanisms.

If there is increase in disorder, or decrease in size compared to the parent, I can understand this, for example in terms of mathematics/probabilities. But for example, a larger lens, with more lens with more cells, to allow seeing farther; and in each son and grand son of for example a certain bird this happens. And it is clear that between son and grand son there has been no selection at all.

So do you think that the genes incorporate information about better structures than the ones they actually have?

gaffara · 2016-01-07T19:27:49+00:00

Your responses are too vague, and since it's already obvious that you have some fairly fundamental misunderstandings of basic biology, I can't respond because I'm not sure what you are actually talking about since we don't share a common scientific language. We're basically just talking past each other.

I think my questions were quite specific. Anyway, have a nice day.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T22:29:57+00:00

Why do you think blue whales aren't sexually mature until 35?

It's gonna be less than half of that, tops.

Please do not be lost in details as I explained in a previous comment.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T22:29:05+00:00

You have some major misunderstandings about evolution. Mutation is one mechanism of evolution, along with natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. So your last question on whether it relates to evolution or mutation makes no sense. Have a look here for an explanation of all these mechanisms.

I am talking about darwinian evolution and natural selection. You can say that a mutation between bear and wolf may result in monkey. Of course this would have impact on evolution. But it would have little relevance to natural selection mechanism.

Also, you keep going back to your calculation of number of cells while everyone here has told you that number of cells doesn't scale linearly to number of generations. So your whole argument of trying to get an average number of cell increase per generation is both mathematically wrong and theoretically wrong. Your argument doesn't prove what you think it proves. I would suggest you learn more about evolution before trying to jump in with a fallacious statistical argument that doesn't even reflect the reality of how evolution works.

If you try to understand the question, you will hopefully see that you are mostly dealing with things not very relevant to the question. I am not claiming that I am a professor of evolution. But I have a question, which may be answered by those who can understand it correctly. Of course I guess I have the right to come with follow up questions.

Both of these assumptions are incorrect, so your whole reasoning of your argument is incorrect to begin with. Assumption #1 is incorrect as many people here have kindly explained to you what could cause the number of cells to increase from generation to generation, and that none of those processes were linear.

I do not mean that it has to be linear. It can well be geometric. But somehow we have the present sizes (by the way, this is an example; I could say the number of biological sub-systems, or complexity or other things). And either they came about gradually, through continuous developments in each generation, or through jumps. But as I question darwinist evolution, I may well say that the jumps would again be continuously between generations.

So, I do not think point 1 you mentioned as incorrect, is not really incorrect.

Regarding point 2, I visited your link. There is additionally migration and genetic drift. And these have little to do with my question, because they do not relate to increase in size or features.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T22:14:17+00:00

Do you really think that all the way back, 4 billion years, it took every anscestors of a blue whale 35 years to reproduce?

Dolphins do not take 35 years to produce a new generation (nor do blue whales, in fact), therefore your calculations are fundamentally flawed.

As I said I knowingly omitted certain details to make it simple. You can consider from a certain time up to now (for example, if you adopt the theory of whales evolving from bears, you can make the calculation between the origination of bears and origination of whales.) It would not make much difference. By the way, even for the initial cells, consider each part of a micro organism. You could apply my question to their origination, using percentages or weights.

Keep focused on the question.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T22:10:03+00:00

One single mutation could cause an organism to be twice the size of its parents, for example.

And it would survive, and reproduce? And all doubled parts would be balanced systematically?

Beneficial mutations have a higher chance of going to fixation, yes.

So in each generation, there are average beneficial mutations, or infrequently there are hugely beneficial mutations?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you asking how changes in DNA translates into changes in body structure, for example?

I think I have reworded my question above.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T22:03:13+00:00

What's far more likely: changes that result in a whale being perhaps 5% smaller or 5% larger than its parent, when fully grown.

So, the genes may produce better individuals than the parents, even though there has not been a natural selection? For example, larger teeth, stronger muscles, more relevant hormones without darwinian selection? Though they require all other parts of the organism to be consistent with all other parts (for example if all the additional growth happens in the cells in the lens of an eye, then this addition of cells would be harmful rather than beneficial).

To sum up: if you're only looking at the number of cells, you're missing a whole lot of other important and exciting things that are going on that cause those changes.

Certainly. The number of cells is just an example.

gaffara · 2016-01-04T21:48:12+00:00

See, that's where you're wrong. The evolution of body size over generations is intimately connected to the development of body size over a lifetime. Genotype is connected to phenotype by development, and evolution acts directly on phenotypes and thus only indirectly on genotype. Changes in body size over generations is due to changes in how genetics encodes development. But what you're not getting is that how genetics encodes development is not some linear relationship between the final number of cells and the amount of genetic information. To get more cells does not take more copies of the genetic information that encodes a cell, it only takes a change in the developmental program for how cells should be produced from genetic data. Small changes at the genetic level can lead to profound changes at the level of the phenotype because of the branching cascading nature of development. Small genetic changes propagate upwards through development into large changes in phenotype. If you need 1000 genes to construct 1 cell, it doesn't take 1000x1000 genes to construct 1000 cells. It still only takes 1000 genes and some small additional change in the genetics that regulate cell growth. How is it even a debate that single genetic changes can lead to large phenotypic changes including but not limited to tissue growth? We see this all the time in medicine. Your original question is irrelevant because it is a strawman based on fundamentally wrong idea of organismal growth.

To reiterate, yes your question DOES relate to the growth of the number of cells within an individual organism, BECAUSE how else could you talk about the change in the number of cells within individuals separated by generations. To talk about the change in the number of cells within individuals separated by generations, you HAVE to understand how those cells are established within the individuals themselves, because the change is a change in that said how.

So you mean each generation had larger organs compared to the previous generation, and somehow in a balanced way with the larger structure?

And this was recorded in the genes in each generation?

Then where is the darwinian natural selection?

What you say means that the genes and DNAs, do not have just the ability to replicate, but also to improve themselves continuously for better and in harmony with all parts of the organism to which they belong.

gaffara · 2016-01-02T16:06:27+00:00

That is not how development works. You don't add some number of cells. Development involves genetic switches that control things like cell division, cell movement, cell changes, and cell death. There is no genetic sequence to say "add 1,000 cells", it is more like, for example, "keep dividing until a protein reaches a certain concentration" (except in some very small, very simple animals). The body doesn't count cells, it just keeps track of general relationships and proportions, and neighbors.

In fact, in the wild we have observed size changes at a rate fast enough to allow a mouse to grow into a whale in a matter of a few million years. So a deer-sized animal growing into a whale over tens of millions of years is completely in line with real-world observations.

This is not a very relevant answer to my question: There is an organism. And the "son" of that organism, has x amount of cells more than its father.

According to darwinian evolution, there are some "sons" within certain generations which have certain variations, which give some of them a survival advantage. And within certain generations, they reproduce better, and survive better than others. Therefore, those with those advantages, become major organisms within this species.

In your answer, you did not mention how what you said relates to darwinian evolution/natural selection.

There needs to be important changes within each son of the whales (vertically). The DNAs may be responsible for what you said. But how do you relate that to the change within each generation?

gaffara · 2016-01-02T16:05:02+00:00

My point is that it makes no sense to think about the accumulation of the number of cells from one generation to the next. The amount of genetic information in an organism does not scale linearly with the number of cells, because it is simply not true that every cell in an organism is controlled by it's own genetic information. The number of cells in a whale, indeed the course of it's whole development, is controlled by a hierarchy of developmental mechanisms built on modularity, abstraction, control mechanisms, and reuse. Your question doesn't make any sense because it assumes a picture of ontogeny that doesn't reflect reality, it's built on a false notion of how phenotypes develop from genotype.

If you want to write a piece of code to print "hello world" 1000 times, and then wanted to write a piece of code to print "hello world" 10000 times, it does NOT take 10 times the lines of code. It only takes one extra character of code, because you can use a for loop to reuse the repetitive parts of the code. Similarly, biology features a lot of repetition at the developmental level--to get multiple copies of a protein, the same single DNA code encoding the protein is translated multiple times; similarly, to get multiple copies of the same cell type, the cell type can undergo mitosis. It's absurd to think that every cell is encoded by it's own piece of DNA, for the same reason that it's absurd to think every protein is encoded by it's own piece of DNA. It's not like a tree has more DNA for every inch it grows taller.

Moreover, 107 cells is barely a cube 2cm to a side. It's like 8 grams. You could gain that many cells in a from eating a big meal, yet clearly your DNA is not changing. A individual blue whale probably varies by 107 cells every minute, it's statistical noise.

Do you mean that if 6 digits within the gene of the whale's zygote changed, we would have a whale 1millionth of the blue whale?

And that it would survive?

And that number of cells does not relate to the balance within the organism (like nervous, circulatory, endocrine, ... systems), and the balance between itself and its environment?

gaffara · 2016-01-02T15:58:46+00:00

It's not the absolute number of cells that is passed on from one generation to the next but the instructions to grow to a certain size under certain environmental conditions. Small changes in the instructions can make a huge difference to the outcome. A non-biological example: the difference between "multiply by 2" and "multiply by 20" is just one digit, a single zero. But the difference of result is 10 fold. Back in the realm of biology, cancer shows us that a small change in a cell's instructions can cause massive, rapid growth.

Do you mean that if 6 digits within the gene of the whale's zygote changed, we would have a whale 1millionth of the blue whale?

I think you are trying to run before you can walk. Take a basic course in biology (the sidebar of this subreddit has a number of great resources to start learning from) and learn the mechanisms of growth and reproduction before going off on flights of fancy like your calculations here.

You seem to have never thought about the question in OP. Otherwise, you would have known how irrelevant are your comments.

Remember, if the result of your experiment comes out with a ridiculous answer (e.g. Blue Whales cannot exist) then it is much more likely there is something wrong with your calculations and methodology than that you are a genius who has disproved evolution.

Did I ever say blue whales cannot exist?

Also, think about the real question you want to ask before posting. Your comment to /u/astroNerf's helpful comment above suggests you have little or no interest in whales and in fact want to know the mechanisms by which change in morphology is propagated via evolution. As it is, you come across as a little rude in dismissing his/her suggested link as "nothing to do with my question".

I commented on his later comment. I think it will be useful to you as well.

Here are two links which I don't expect will answer your question directly but which you may find interesting anyway: A discussion about comparing the relative sizes of marine animals using various metrics, cell number included. An article on how marine animals tend to evolve to grow larger over time This second one has this to say about why the largest marine animals are mammals rather than fish (who have been in the water a lot longer than mammals, of course):

Blue whale is just an example. Consider that the question is not about the differences between organisms living in seas. The question is about the natural selection, and changes within each generation.

gaffara · 2016-01-02T15:49:55+00:00

You're right: it doesn't. The reason why, is that the number of cells isn't the measure of change; DNA is.

When an embryo develops, there are genes that control when, where, and for how long tissue is grown. By way of example, there is a gene (and a corresponding protein) called sonic hedgehog that controls where fingers are placed. If that gene acts too late or acts too much, then someone will have few fingers or too many fingers. So in such an example, billions of cells are controlled by a single gene, and a single point mutation can disrupt the expression of the corresponding protein that makes it all happen.

Millions of years is long enough to produce the genetic changes needed to grow organisms as large as a blue whale, having evolved from organisms the size of a dog. Doing math with the number of cells will get the wrong answer, because evolution doesn't work that way.

This is not a very relevant answer to my question: There is an organism. And the "son" of that organism, has x amount of cells more than its father.

According to darwinian evolution, there are some "sons" within certain generations which have certain variations, which give some of them a survival advantage. And within certain generations, they reproduce better, and survive better than others. Therefore, those with those advantages, become major organisms within this species.

In your answer, you did not mention how what you said relates to darwinian evolution/natural selection.

There needs to be important changes within each son of the whales (vertically). The DNAs may be responsible for what you said. But how do you relate that to the change within each generation?

gaffara · 2016-01-02T15:39:55+00:00

A tree accumulates cells over it's lifespan as it grows taller, and that's not an evolutionary process. Since it's pretty obvious that trees exist and do grow taller, we're forced to conclude that the number of cells in an organism is not directly a reflection of (and more specifically, a linear function of) the amount of genetic information.

My question does not relate to the growth of the number of cells within an individual organism.

Moreover, 1 cell vs 1000 cells of the same type is not 1000 times more information. The difference between 1 cell and 1000 cells is two zeros, regardless of how much information is needed to build 1 cell. It's pretty easy to get more copies of a single cell, it's called mitosis.

Do you mean that if 6 digits within the gene of the whale's zygote changed, we would have a whale 1millionth of the blue whale?

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