The fact that she would rather make movies with Ashton Kutcher instead of spending time trying to solve the problems that plague mankind show what type of person she really is.
No it doesn't. Not one bit.
Natalie Portman - Scientist
131–140 of 177 posts
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#132I find this articles lack of hot grits disturbing.
I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the comments, getting more and more depressed thinking as I'm the only old codger who remembers this meme. I am happy to find out I'm not the only one!
Don't worry. Some of us old codgers still enjoy themselves.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is backed up by medical knowledge. It has been repeatedly shown that metabolism varies very little between people when corrected for body mass. What does vary considerably is appetite, and this is the major contributor to body weight.
Do not say 'backed up by medical knowledge' unless you plan on citing sources. I don't have much time right now, but I did find a good starting point: http://www.ajcn.org/content/53/6/1561S.abstract "In this regard, the proneness to store energy primarily as fat or as lean tissue is a major determinant of the response to a caloric surplus." Also: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v8/n7/abs/oby200063a.html Talks about…
I have a hard time understanding why people don't like admitting that just as we differ on the outside (beauty, fitness) we are also different on the inside (metabolism, disease susceptibility)
I can only speak for myself, but "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" sums it up pretty well for me.
Beautiful to whom?
Fit for what?
Susceptible to which diseases? Concrete example: Carrying a gene for sickle-cell disease is obviously bad... unless you want some resistance to malaria. So which is it now, good or bad?
Of course people are different, and that's awesome. But the idea that you can give people "scores" on a bunch of axes like the ones above, and then figure out who is "better" or "worse" seems to me naive at best.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#134Wow, this hard turned into a nature vs. nurture debate. I highly recommend reading The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. It seems a lot of the people who are really pushing the nurture end of things seem highly misinformed.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it so easy to accept that pretty much everything in our bodies is genetic but not intelligence? I don't see why it would be any different. We already know that the brain is not just one big 'computing mass' but instead consists of many thousands of extremely specialized systems interconnected in a genetically-determined way shaped over thousands of years of evolution. If some of these systems are missing or no…
Everyone isn't born equal, but everything we have doesn't solely come from genetics. Nurture plays a huge role in our development. Saying Natalie Portman is successful solely because of her DNA is wholly disrespectful to her hard work. She didn't get best actress and a masters degree by just slumming it because her genes did all the work. It's naive and ignorant to ignore nurture in the debate. A lack of Vitamin D or…
There's a fair bit of evidence that hard work is itself genetic, and the ability to focus attention and delay gratification is largely due to certain brain structures. Those brain structures can be affected by genetics, by environment (eg. fetal alcohol syndrome results in a marked loss of impulse control later), or by practice, but not everybody starts from the same point.
Anyway, your point gets into issues of free will and consciousness that philosophers have been debating for centuries. If everything has a cause, how can we say what we're actually responsible for, and how much is just a reaction to random chance? Perhaps consciousness is largely an illusion: the brain makes decisions based on firmly ingrained circuits that function at a subconscious level, and only later does that bubble up to the conscious level.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn't reality. The genetic factors of intelligence are well documented. I could have played basketball six hours a day, every day for the last 25 years, and I'd be really really good. But I wouldn't be as good as Lebron James was when he was 12 years old.
How do you know that? Another case in point: taxi drivers apparently have growing brain regions for geographic stuff (learning their city by heart). I guess you wouldn't expect most taxi drivers to have above average intelligence, but if you tested their geographic "senses", they might register as geniuses. But they also probably didn't become taxi drivers because of their talent - it developed by them being taxi dri…
At the risk of both taking a cheap shot and perpetuating an industry stereotype, I haven't encountered too many geographically genius-level taxi drivers in my city.
I'm just happy if they have a GPS navigation system and can vaguely understand the directions issued from same.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know that? Another case in point: taxi drivers apparently have growing brain regions for geographic stuff (learning their city by heart). I guess you wouldn't expect most taxi drivers to have above average intelligence, but if you tested their geographic "senses", they might register as geniuses. But they also probably didn't become taxi drivers because of their talent - it developed by them being taxi dri…
At the risk of both taking a cheap shot and perpetuating an industry stereotype, I haven't encountered too many geographically genius-level taxi drivers in my city. I'm just happy if they have a GPS navigation system and can vaguely understand the directions issued from same.
You probably don't live in London, then:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...
When taxi drivers are required to demonstrate a deep knowledge of the geography of their area and are not allowed to rely on maps or GPS navigation systems in order to be certified, you end up with taxi drivers that are very good at navigating the city.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a sitcom. That's what they do... don't take it so seriously. My point was that people other than traditional 'geeks' find the show amusing. They get the humor. Geek-culture has gone mainstream.
I don't think that's accurate. They're laughing at us, not with us. They don't need to understand "geek-culture" to laugh at us. We just need to be different.
Sheldon is actually played in a pretty high-status way, despite his quirks.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always cringe at shows like Big Bang Theory that portray smart folks as socially inept Fringe makes science look pretty cool, IMHO.
From what I've seen of Fringe, it makes a mockery of science.
I didn't mean to suggest that it portrays realistic science or an accurate representation of the scientific process - after all this is a show whose main plot revolves around travel between alternate universes and non-human shapeshifting sentient beings - just that the show makes it's scientist character the heroes, and not buffoons to laugh at.
Re: Natalie Portman - Scientist
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn't reality. The genetic factors of intelligence are well documented. I could have played basketball six hours a day, every day for the last 25 years, and I'd be really really good. But I wouldn't be as good as Lebron James was when he was 12 years old.
You'd probably be better than most other basketball players. If you want to be the best in the world, it's true that factors outside of your control come into play. If you can "settle" for being in the top 10, top 100, or top 1000, instead of #1, you probably don't need much besides a lot of well-directed effort. In my experience.
Well if he's 5'9 he's not gonna make even the top 1000.