Flouride, evolution, and intelligence; smoking; storing up ammunition; Hot Fudge Friday; and other interesting mail.

Mail 763 Sunday, February 17, 2013

Flouride and Stupidity

We discussed the flouride matter before and you said you would take it on if we had something very solid to go on with it.  As you know, much data is out there, but it’s very hard to present any of it and maintain credibility with the general public.  While reading an article about why people are getting stupider, I came across flouride as one of the reasons why.  I’ll get to the others after we deal with flouride:

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Researchers from Harvard have found that a substance rampant in the nation’s water supply, fluoride, is lowering IQ and dumbing down the population. The researchers, who had their findings published in the prominent journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a federal government medical journal stemming from the U.S National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, concluded that ”our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment”.

“In this study we found a significant dose-response relation between fluoride level in serum and children’s IQ…This is the 24th study that has found this association”.

One attorney, Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President, weighs in on the research by saying:

“It’s senseless to keep subjecting our children to this ongoing fluoridation experiment to satisfy the political agenda of special-interest groups. Even if fluoridation reduced cavities, is tooth health more important than brain health? It’s time to put politics aside and stop artificial fluoridation everywhere”.

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http://naturalsociety.com/leading-geneticist-human-intelligence-slowly-declining/

Harvard is about as about as solid as it gets.  It’s hard for nay-saying whinners to denounce an institution of people who are — by and large — smarter and more experienced than the nascent nay-saying community. 

But, this is just one reason why humans seem to be losing intelligence and control of emotions.  While I am convinced this article does not get all the reasons, it hits on some of the major lifestyle changes that cause it. 

Then we have problems with the food supply:

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One study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that pesticides, which are rampant among the food supply, are creating lasting changes in overall brain structure — changes that have been linked to lower intelligence levels and decreased cognitive function. Specifically, the researchers found that a pesticide known as chlorpyrifos (CPF) has been linked to ”significant abnormalities”. Further, the negative impact was found to occur even at low levels of exposure.

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More food issues:

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Following 14,000 children, British researchers uncovered the connection between processed foods and reduced IQ. After recording the children’s’ diets and analyzing questionnaires submitting by the parents, the researchers found that if children were consuming a processed diet at age 3, IQ decline could begin over the next five years. The study found that by age 8, the children had suffered the IQ decline. On the contrary, children who ate a nutrient-rich diet including fruit and vegetables were found to increase their IQ over the 3 year period. The foods considered nutrient-rich by the researchers were most likely conventional fruits and vegetables.

Interestingly, one particular ingredient ubiquitous in processed foods and sugary beverages across the globe -high fructose corn syrup – has been tied to reduced IQ. The UCLA researchers coming to these findings found that HFCS may be damaging the brain functions of consumers worldwide, sabotaging learning and memory. In fact, the official release goes as far to say that high-fructose corn syrup can make you ‘stupid’.

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And you can thank the left and their social programs as well:

The leftists and their celebrations of diversity may be another reason:

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According to Crabtree, our cognitive and emotional capabilities are fueled and determined by the combined effort of thousands of genes. If a mutation occurred in any of of these genes, which is quite likely, then intelligence or emotional stability can be negatively impacted.

“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas, and a clear-sighted view of important issues. Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues,” the geneticist began his article in the scientific journal Trends in Genetics.

Further, the geneticist explains that people with specific adverse genetic mutations are more likely than ever to survive and live amongst the ‘strong.’ Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ is less applicable in today’s society, therefore those with better genes will not necessarily dominate in society as they would have in the past.

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I have always opposed the forcible medication of people by contaminating their water supply. I do not know enough about the data to conclude that fluoridation affects future IQ, and particularly I don’t know about dosages. It has always seemed to me that if you want to persuade people to apply fluorides to teeth – you need not drink it, direct application to the teeth is sufficient as I understand it – you could distribute it as mouthwash in fire houses or other public places, or pay CVS and other drug stores to administer it free to all comers. Swish your teeth with fluoride and spit it out. If you don’t want to do that, don’t. For parents who want to be sure they kids get the fluoride, let them buy the drops and administer then to their own children. I see no reason why I should pay to put fluorides on my lawn on the off chance that putting it in the drinking water will get it on my – or your – kids’ teeth. The beneficial effects of fluoride come from topical application to the teeth, not from blood delivery after digestive absorption.

Most of the alleged detrimental effects are ascribed to drinking the stuff, and there is enough data to convince at least some people that they don’t want to consume it or allow their children to consumed. One supposes that Arrowhead and Crescent Springs and other delivers of bottled water have a vested interest in lobbying for fluorides since they want to sell bottled water without fluoride. This means that citizens who don’t want fluoride administrated to them must pay through taxes to have it delivered to them, then pay Arrowhead to deliver unflourided water. This may create jobs, but it does not seem a sane allocation of resources. And of course there is the question of rights: what right have you to treat me for my own? My bad teeth are not infectious to your children. Even if the fluoride treatment works, the benefits accrue to me, yet you must pay for them with no conceivable benefit to you. This is unfair and ought to be unconstitutional.

I leave out the claims that fluorides in the water do us active harm and make our children stupid. That question is important if we can establish it’s truth, but it is certainly not unproved – nor it is proved that the benefits claimed for fluoridation of the public water are greater than those that would be obtained by a less coercive means of fluoride distribution. The fluoridation advocates will assert “But we mean well, we mean nothing but good” which is likely true but irrelevant. They force the treatment on all whether they want it or not, and they can’t really prove that by doing that they are doing good for ther clients – or should we say victims? And while the proof of universal mental degradation from fluoride is not certain, no one has proved that some are no so affected. It seems clear to me. Distribute the stuff as contact medicine and get it out of the water.

I don’t think I need to comment on your theories of evolution at this time.

Hot Fudge Sundae which fell on Friday is growing .

Jerry:

Obviously; this should be a credible site.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/20130215-what-we-know-about-the-russian-meteor.html

I would have to have a map depicting damage levels at various distances to the centroid of damage to estimate yield and "detonation altitude. Obviously; this thing came in at an oblique angle which allowed heat and aerodynamic stresses to build to the point where it fragmented, releasing it’s kinetic energy as an airburst.

The Russians could have lost a big chunk of a city.

James Crawford=

They most certainly could have. Or, give or take a few hours, so could we. It’s dangerous out there.

‘Shane, it turns out, had deep misgivings about the project he was working on and feared he was compromising US national security. His family wants to know whether that project sent him to his grave.’

<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/afbddb44-7640-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2KzVJrFJo

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Roland Dobbins

I know no other data on this.

Peak Holy Oil!

Mr. Pournelle,

With regard to all the speculation on the "Dorner Papal Conspiracy" and the possibility of the next Pope being the last Pope, would it be true to say we have reached "Peak Pope"?

John Dowd

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

This is the funniest story I’ve read about police in years:

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Police are under investigation for jokingly filling in a witness statement in the name of a force dog.

Officers became exasperated when prosecutors asked for an account of a crime from a ‘PC Peach’, not realising Peach was the name of a police dog.

So they completed the form as if it had been written by the alsatian, and signed it with a paw print.

The dog’s statement read: ‘I chase him. I bite him. Bad man. He tasty. Good boy. Good boy Peach.’

The form was pinned up at a West Midlands Police station last week for the amusement of colleagues, who are often at odds with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the handling of cases. </ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279789/I-chase-I-bite–crime-report-dog–Police-investigate-completing-witness-statement-written-force-dog.html

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Ammunition for Education

Dr. P,

When Mr. White says, “It is generally known that those serving in the regular armed forces cannot be relied upon to bear arms against American citizens”, he is echoing a romantic notion unsupported by historical facts.

Kent State is merely the most recently notorious instance of U.S. soldiers firing on U.S. citizens to deadly effect. The Newark riot in the summer of ’67 was much bloodier than Kent State. Going back a little farther, MacArthur’s dispersal of the Bonus Army tells us that, not only will soldiers fire on civilians, but they will not even hesitate significantly when ordered into action against former comrades in arms. Going a little farther back, there is also that minor historical dust-up sometimes referred to as the War of Northern Aggression, which also disproves another romantic neoconservative notion (that democracies don’t wage war against other democracies).

Just my 2 cents worth, a bit more pessimistic than usual.

Regards,

Bill Clardy

On 2/15/2013 4:40 AM, Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle wrote:

There is a classic SF story about how a chap in an over organized society finds that the orders come from ‘suggestions’ from the only sane man left in the city. A janitor…

I believe that would be Jack Vance’s classic, Dodkin’s Job <http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Vance/Dodkins-Job.html . One of my personal faves! 🙂

P.S. In attempting to find an e-text of the story, I ran across a filksong version <http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1613 at the Mudcat Cafe <http://mudcat.org/ website. Highly amusing! 🙂

v/r, dh

That’s the story

Cal state only accepting foreign grad students

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-12/glut-of-foreign-students-hurts-u-s-innovation.html

Read this and for a second thought you wrote it…. Most surprising is the Cal State policy of restricting graduate school acceptance letters to foreign students.

From Bloomberg, Feb 11, 2013, 6:19:15 PM

"In the old days, the U.S. program for foreign-student visas helped developing nations and brought diversity to then white-bread American campuses. Today, the F-1 program, as it is known, has become a profit center for universities and a wage-suppression tool for the technology industry."

Thanks for your site,

Stephen Koop

Marvin was noting the influx of full paid foreign student to the detriment of domestic, but we had no conclusions.

Reading, phonics, and so forth

I recently learned that the local school district (in Texas) teaches phonics in 1st grade, but evaluation of its success is by giving the students made-up nonsense words to pronounce using the rules they’ve been taught. My first impression on hearing this was that clearly this was designed by someone who wanted phonics instruction to fail so they could go back to the see-say method that used to be prevalent.

But perhaps I am too hasty. Since you have some connection with successful phonics education, what is your opinion of this? Is this an effective way to teach reading? My own opinion is that associating words already in use with the written word would be the obvious target.

Best regards, etc.

Michael Walters

I would say that is precisely the proper method for determining success. It is culture free, and fairly independent of vocabulary. If you can read, you can read nonsense words. If you cannot read nonsense words you cannot read.

And if it’s done right about 95% of the students will be able to read morphantics by the time they get to second grade. Which means they will also be able to read Constantinople, Istanbul, and Timbuktu…

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Excellent. I am glad to know my first impression was so far off the mark. Thanks for the information.

Stay well,

Michael Walters

SUBJ: The Guy With The Nuclear Reactor In His Garage

In Seattle. And he lets smart kids play with it.

http://kplu.org/post/why-are-kids-federal-way-playing-nuclear-reactor

Yes we had one at UCLA and I was a merit badge counselor showing the Scouts how a nuclear reacgtor worked, but some people were afraid I would explode and UCLA got shed of it. Ah well. Home of he Brave.

: Does breathing smoke prevent some cancers?

Jerry:

In your Mail for February 13 you said:

Of course there are plenty of other reasons not to habitually breathe in the smoke of burning leaves. I doubt we evolved to do it.

And yet the smell of burning leaves is one we love, and we are drawn to it. Unfortunately, burning leaves has been outlawed in most places and few moderns will have enjoyed the experience. But what if we evolved in response to the benefits of breathing in the smoke of burning leaves.

I continue to think the issue of smoking and lung cancer is more complicated than we know.

When my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer last year she said to the doctor, "But I’ve never smoked." The doctor explained that she had the kind of cancer that only nonsmokers get. Smokers don’t get her kind of cancer.

Naturally I immediately asked, "Does that mean that smoking protects you from some kinds of cancer?" He gave me a bit of a dirty look and said, "It doesn’t work that way."

But I kept wondering. How does he know it doesn’t work that way?

The doctor, who we dearly love, did admit that there hasn’t been much research on this kind of cancer. I speculated that perhaps that was because there was no one to sue over this kind of cancer. We have since learned that many friends and acquaintances have had this particular kind of cancer and had the same lobectomy surgery as my wife to get rid of it. No other treatment was necessary. You don’t even miss the removed lobe of one lung, and some don’t even miss an entire lung when it is removed.

I might also argue that primitive men (whether or not they evolved) lived in an atmosphere of thick smoke, whether in caves, tents, or cabins. Perhaps they were healthier because of it. After surviving infancy and childhood, the smoke might have done them a lot of good.

So many unknowns. So many opportunities for research that has no payoff other than satisfying simple monkey curiosity.

Best regards,

–Harry M.

Medicine is now more science than art, but a large degree of art remains. We know something about wha some things do to some people, and what helps them. We collect case histories and slowly generalize. We don’t have anough autism case histories – real ones—to justify many conclusions, Same for some kinds of cancer.

People used to smoke. They must have had reason to, They enjoyed it. Why? We really don’t know a lot about that. But I do know that non-smokers live longer, and it worked for me.

Waves of Hawaii

Jerry,

Clarke Little of Hawaii

Site : <http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/>

Gallery: <http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/gallery/gallery/3-0-MainGallery.html>

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

Jerry:

You mentioned that you once drove the route of Paul Revere’s ride with some MIT and Harvard students.

The ride is re-enacted every year on Patriots’ Day (a Massachusetts holiday in April) by a rider in period dress. Every year the rider dismounts in front of Gaffney’s Funeral Home in Medford, and after some local festivities re-mounts to continue the journey to Concord.

Most spectators don’t know the real significance of this stop, but insiders (my wife grew up in Medford) know the back story. It seems that Dawes and Revere stopped at the Isaac Hall house to "rouse the regulars" (Hall was the company commander of the Medford Minute Men). Hall was also a leading distiller of rum, and there are accounts of Revere refreshing himself with an ample portion of rum before continuing his journey. Yet other accounts (possibly local folklore) have Revere falling off his horse after being assisted back on.

The Isaac Hall house is still standing, and is now the Gaffney Funeral Home.

http://britishredcoat.blogspot.com/2009/03/isaac-hall-house.html

Best,

Doug Ely