Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 December 16

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December 16

Naughty James Gillray prints

I read in the news that some of the more risqué cartoons from the incomparable 18th century illustrator James Gillray have recently been unearthed. Is there anywhere I can see some of these newly discovered prints online?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't get much more racy than this

No, only in line at the V&A next year. Yomangani^talk 01:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I took the liberty of formatting the image, Yomangani. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yo yo yo! nice to hear from you, Yo-MG; I thought you retired or something. Are you quite sure about this? V&A's website doesn't list an upcoming Gillray exhibit....--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 02:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm just in hibernation, I occasionally poke my nose out to see if it is spring yet. I don't think the V&A have had time to update the website yet, but Stephen Calloway, the curator of prints, said that they would be putting it on display next year. It seems like some of "rediscovered" prints were already in circulation: Fashionable Contrasts is in there, as is Ci-devant Occupations (NSFW if you are in the 18th century), but this is the first complete copy of the "Suppressed Prints" to emerge. Yomangani^talk 12:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Digital theft

In many debates about online "theft", some people note that the definition of theft implies that one person gains possession of an item by depriving possession from another person. Now, because of the ability to copy files, theft often means gaining possession without necessarily depriving possession from the original owner. Is there a term for that specific type of "theft" that existed before the current concept of copyright theft? -- kainaw™ 01:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Copyright has been around for 300 years (see History of copyright law), so it far pre-dates the digital age. Copying doesn't just refer to digital copying. Hundreds of years ago scribes would spend their lives copying things out by hand. --Tango (talk) 02:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

They are arguably wrong to not such a definition. The OED gives theft as "The action of a thief; the felonious taking away of the personal goods of another". That first clause - the "action of a thief", necessitates a definition of the thief "One who takes portable property from another without the knowledge or consent of the latter, converting it to his own use; one who steals". So in the case of electronic copies, there is a taking of intangible properties - for instance copyright or patent rights - which have notional cash values. I think the straight answer to your question is no; so for instance, copyright theft has been going on for as long as copyright has been a concept, and is known by that term, or as plagiarism, or another like term. I guess before 1710, terms such as copying, theft and perhaps plagiarism were used. Patents have a longer pedigree, but theft of patented intellectual property was also, I think, known as a breach of a patent, or theft; but no more detailed term. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If I create something, I have the basic right to its full value. If you obtain or provide to others my thing I created, I cannot collect value from it. Thus, you have deprived me of its value. So, I record a song. You copy the song and make it availible for others to get free. They don't buy my song, which they otherwise would have. Thus, I am deprived of that value that my song has. I had the value, you deprived me of it. Therefore, theft. --Jayron32 02:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Copying the song and letting others copy it are two different things. I'm only referring to theft, not distribution. I'm trying to find a way to refer to digital theft such that there is no way to argue "if you still have it, I didn't steal it." I'd like a word "foo" so I can refer to digital foo instead of digital theft. -- kainaw™ 03:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If I open a shoe shop, and you open a competing shoe shop next door, I cannot sell so many shoes. Therefore, you have deprived me of some of the value of my shoe shop. I had the value, you deprived me of it. Therefore, theft. Felis cheshiri (talk) 17:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are referring to the traditional concept of larceny, which is legally defined, versus "theft", which is a more fluid concept, even though the core of it is larceny. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)That would be 'unauthorized reproduction', or 'copyright violation'. The words 'theft' and 'piracy' are often used, even though there isn't a physical removal of property, by applying a less strict definition. It's just a form of rhetoric. —Akrabbim^talk 03:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Not really rhetoric. Theft, as a term, can mean taking something which is not yours, even for intangible concepts or for non-material goods. For example, the legal concept of Theft of services is well established. If I take a cab ride across the city, then jump out and run away, I have stolen the "service" of the cab ride, even though at the end I have nothing extra in my pockets after the cab ride is over. Theft just means that you take something you don't have the right to take, regardless of what that is. --Jayron32 03:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the definition of "taking something". As for the taxi ride, you have taken his time and gas away from him, so the driver actually experiences real damage. Applying the same term to making an unauthorized copy is less straightforward. —Akrabbim^talk 04:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Does not a recording artist take time and money to create a recording? Would not copying it deprive them of their rightful compensation for that time and money in exactly the same way as the ditched cab ride? --Jayron32 04:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you serious? The recording artist is not affected whatsoever, whereas the cab driver is now in a different part of the city, later in the day, and with less gas in his gas tank. (Note: I'm not claiming the artist should not be paid or that piracy is OK; just asserting that the artist is not affected whatsoever by the act of copying it.) Tempshill (talk) 05:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The cab driver is irrelevent to the analogy. Pick a different service you don't pay for, where the person stays put. Let's say instead of a cab driver, you visit a therapist, and then after your first appointment, you never pay and skip town. You still stole his services, and he's still sitting in his office and out nothing except the hour he spent with you. Try to convince a judge you didn't steal anything there. Same thing here. Someone spent time doing something for which they are due recompensation. You recieved the products of their efforts, and did not remunerate them. Therefore, it is theft. The particulars are inconsequential here. --Jayron32 05:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

But that's part of the problem. This analogy is still not the same as most copyright violations because the person spent time they would not have spent on you if you hadn't given the impression that you would pay them. If I ask someone to write a short song for me and they spend an hour doing it and then I never pay them, then you would have a good analogy to the therapist thing. But that's not the way most copyright violations work, the person makes the product (spends their time etc) with the hope that people will buy it. There's no pre-existing agreement between the two parties. The person who uses the product without the permission of the copyright owner usually has no initial effect on the decision to make the product. It would still have been made anyway regardless of whether the person used the product without permission or didn't use the product at all. And perhaps the key point, if a person either doesn't use the product or uses it but doesn't pay, there's no real difference to the person who made the product. On the other hand there's usually a difference to the therapist between whether someone didn't visit them or did visit them but didn't pay. Remember certain things are not even eligble for copyright. For example if you spend many hours and lots of money accurately reproducing a public domain artwork, this is not eligible for copyright in the US (and the WMF have decided that's all we care about) and you'd have no luck convincing a judge in the US you should receive renumeration from anyone you didn't have an agreement with no matter how much time you spent on it. (On the other hand, any party which had an agreement for the products to be reproduced for them will likely have to pay unless perhaps they were mislead or something.) However this doesn't really apply to services, no matter whether your work is creative or not provided you have an agreement (written, verbal or implied) for payment and you provide the services up to the standard that can be expected from the agreement and you aren't breaking any laws, then you are entitled to payment.

When it comes to software, there is of course usually some cost to the producer from copyright violations, for example, some people may seek support thorough a variety of means which ends up affecting the producer. (There is also the cost the producer pays to try and stop people copying the product but that's a bit more iffy.) Just to be clear, I'm not saying that copyright violations are okay or even that they're necessarily a lesser crime but the analogy is IMHO clearly somewhat flawed since the way most copyright violations doesn't really have any perfect analogy there are always a number of key differences. Remember there are also likely copyright violations even when there is no expectation of compensation. For example, while some FLOSS developers are willing to license their work under a proprietary basis, others are not. If someone uses say GPL license code (it has happened quite a few times) and does not release it under the GPL, perhaps does not even acknowledge it was used, the copyright holder is likely entitlted to sue and demand this stops. In some cases they may be able to expect some financial compensation due to the violation but they may have never themselves expected any compensation and their only expectaion may be anyone who wants to use it obeys the license. If a party tries to negotiate with them, they will refuse. Is this 'less wrong' then a typical violation? Is it less 'theft' even though there's no expectation of (financial) compensation/renumeration? Nil Einne (talk) 11:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Two points: a) That someone did not have a specific person in mind does not mean that they did not have the right to expect someone to pay for it. By providing music in a tangible form, people are providing a service for others to purchase. If I take that music without paying for it, I have stolen it. b) That someone has voluntarily given up their rights to expect compensation for their services does not mean that the rights did not exist in the first place. The rights were relinquished, but had they not first done so, then the taking of that would be stealing. I have the right to give my possessions to perfect strangers for free. It doesn't mean that all property can be taken from anyone. I have the right to provide pro bono services. It doesn't mean that others are not within their rights to expect payments for their services. And I have the right to offer intellectual property under a copyleft license or put it in the public domain. It doesn't mean that if someone else has some bit of intellectual property, they don't own rights over their music/writing/whatever. --Jayron32 15:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You have changed the subject. The point you are avoiding acknowledging is that if I make a copy of a song at home, this act does not affect the artist at all, so your analogy with cab drivers is way off. I am not disagreeing with most of what you are saying, by the way. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Cab driver is a bad analogy, this is more like sneaking into a 1/2 full music concert without a ticket. Googlemeister (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If I create something, I have the basic right to its full value. - I take objection to that. There is an implicit assumption that you create it completely, out of nothing. But your intellectual creations always depend on cultural inheritance and background. If you claim "the full value" of your song, then, by the golden rule, you also need to compensate the creators of tonal music, of the English language, and even of language, all the way back to Ugh, who had the idea that "Ugh" signals consent, while "Ugh-ugh" implies dissent. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The law sees it otherwise, obviously. Patents and copyrights involve taking basic elements such as words and notes, and creating something new. That's the key issue - the whole is a newly-created thing. The U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to pass laws protecting the rights of authors and inventors for a period of time. No small part of that is the incentive to create. If there were no patent or copyright laws, i.e. no right to benefit from having invented something, why would people bother to invent things? There would be no incentive, and no progress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:27, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, its for "a limited time", and for exactly my reason. You take from the commons, you create, you get the right for some of the value of your creation, but eventually it too enters the public domain. The claim that you have the right to "the full value" has, as far as I'm concerned, neither moral nor legal justification. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, for a limited time, not forever. But not for just 30 seconds, either. Typically for some number of years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The debate is not, usually, whether there should be IP protections at all but whether the IP protections in their current form suppress innovation more than they encourage it. There is a strong argument to be made that in the US in particular, the copyright and patent procedures have both been "captured" by the interests of major content producers in a way to ensure their status quo, rather than encouraging the production of new content. The clear example is the work that Disney has been doing to extend copyright protections again and again so that Steamboat Willie doesn't fall into the public domain (even though it, itself, is obviously a derivative work). The question of "how long is the right amount" is a hot one amongst legal theorists, economists, etc. Extending it endlessly, again and again, because one company (or even a number of them) are potentially going to lose money on characters that were created in the late 1920s, is probably not the best way to stimulate new innovation, though. (And Bugs, if you'd like to actually get informed on an issue that you're going to come in and take a stance on... I'd be happy to recommend some interesting literature about it! Lessig's Free Culture is a great copyright primer.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Too much protection is an issue. But I'm seeing arguments here that there should be no protection at all, and that would be unfair to the author, inventor, artist, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

They have actually been calling this "piracy" for a long, long time—since the 18th century or so it has been defined as "one who unjustly prints another person's copy." If there is any "theft", it is of the exclusive right to publish (assuming you think such a thing exists at all), not of property. This is not as new as one might think—the problem has been around in its roughly "modern" form for three hundred years or so, and in similar forms even earlier. See Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Photograph of Rabbi Yosef Zemelman of Przedecz Poland

Can a user please assist me to locate a photograph of Rabbi Yosef (Joseph) Alexander Zemelman, who was the Rabbi of Przedecz in Poland before and at the beginning of the Second World War. He succeeded in escaping to Warsaw where he took an active part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 09:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

My preliminary investigation is inconclusive. Info about when he arrived in Warsaw and whether he was associated with any particular organization(s) or better-documented figures would be most helpful. -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Simonschaim (talk) 11:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Richmond Formulae.

In a discussion on one of the Wikipedia IRC channels, something called the 'Richmond formulae' was mentioned. Wikipedia does not appear to currently have an article on this. From the IRC discussions I gather it some kind of technique for analysing the results of political canvassing, and predicting voter response at elections?

Is there a documented statistical model behind it, and if so when was it initially developed?

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, it appears to be so, since the article Electoral software references it. Richmond formula is a redlink as yet, but someone could likely create an article about it anytime. --Jayron32 15:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A single blog post I found suggests it is a formula arrived at by Richmond (London) liberal democrats, who take as inputs results of door to door canvassing and output probable election results for the constituency. No more details than that, sadly. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like it could be the sort of thing to be kept secret. Nil Einne (talk) 16:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also a Richmond Formula seemingly connected with measuring the solids content of fluids. It's a little vexing that the politicos on the blog discussed RF as if all should be familiar with it, but we can find little about it on the web. The blog suggested that all political parties would have some sort of algorithm for predicting results from canvass returns. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Geography question

which North American Mountain range (peak)

A. Has a name which aptly desribes it like White Sands New Mexico or Crater lake Oregon B. It is extremely difficult especially for the inexperienced to climb because of bad weather and special skills —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.96.226 (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Mount McKinley, by it's native name Denali. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Snowy mountains.

AKA Sierra Nevada Steewi (talk) 00:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Denali isn't a hard climb. If the weather's good, it's a basic walk-up (a class 1 on the Yosemite Decimal System), taking a few days. The risk comes from bad weather, which can leave you stuck in one place for weeks on end. --Carnildo (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Or permanently, if it turns a little too cold for too long. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

And low O2 levels in the air can make an easy hike much more difficult then it would otherwise be. Googlemeister (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Gotta be the Rocky Mountains. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How to explain invalidity of this syllogism?

I have a syllogism here, which is invalid:

All dogs are mortal. Plato is mortal. Thus, Plato is a dog.

Now, the problem I have is that not all syllogisms of this pattern (CaB,AaB->AaC) are definitely wrong, because another one for instance could be:

All humans are mortal. Jeanne D'Arc is mortal. Thus, Jeanne D'Arc is human.

So, two things: A, how do I call the invalidity s.q. validity of this? Partial validity? Ambivalidity? B, how would I describe the reason for the invalidity in the first case (Plato)? I can't say it's invalid because it's CaB,AaB->AaC, so how do I formulate the reason?--195.14.207.176 (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

No, the argument is always invalid. The result may be valid, but that is by accident - a wrong argument can have a correct result ("There are odd numbers that are not prime, because 2 is an odd number, and 2 is not prime"). You have a hidden abduction in there - from "all X are Y", you derive "all Y are X", or, in your example, "all dog are mortal, hence all mortals are dogs. Plato is mortal....). Abduction is not logically sound. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

See Fallacy of the undistributed middle. Deor (talk) 22:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Why does there have to be a "reason" the first case is wrong? There's just no reason that it should be right. It's similar to saying that because an apple is on the table and an orange is on the same table, that an apple must be an orange. Um, what? --99.237.234.104 (talk) 23:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Despite having a three-part structure, with two premises and a conclusion, the argument you give is simply not a syllogism. Each of the parts of a syllogism has to start with "Some", "All" or "No". See syllogism article for details. -- noosphere 23:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Quote from Woody Allen, straight from Love and Death: "A. Socrates is a man. B. All men are mortal. C. All men are Socrates." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

noosph is correct that you don't have a syllogism. Let's pick it apart and see what's wrong.

1. All dogs are mortal.
2. Plato is mortal.
3. Thus, Plato is a dog.

Okay now, according to (1), dogs are included in the larger group of things which are mortal. Fine. By (2), Plato is also in the group of mortal beings. Also fine. So we have now established that both Plato and dogs are mortal. Okay, they're both members of the same group ... doesn't mean that they're the same thing. (Madonna and Queen Elizabeth are both female, but they're not the same person.)

A syllogism may be diagrammed as A → B → C, where the conclusion of the first statement is the premise of the second. What you have is A → B and C → B. The logically correct version would more your (3) ahead of (1). Then 'Plato is a dog' and 'All dogs are mortal', thus 'Plato is mortal.' (Of course this assumes that somebody's got a dog named 'Plato.')

Your second example

All humans are mortal.
Jeanne D'Arc is mortal.
Thus, Jeanne D'Arc is human.

is just as bad. It just seems different because it happens to be true. Syllogisms (and logic, generally) are not corcern with truth, but validity. So, while your first example is false, and the second one is true, both are invalid. B00P (talk) 23:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• What you can usually infer from the first two premises of such syllogisms is the satisfaction of a necessary condition which is not in itself a sufficient one for the conclusion. If all dogs are mortal, then it wouldn't be possible for Plato to be a dog if Plato were immortal. If all humans are mortal, an immortal Joan of Arc couldn't be human. (Please don't ask me where that puts Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God; it's a mystery to me.) So adding the second premise removes a possible barrier to the conclusion, but not all of them. Similar arguments are "1. You were driving recklessly. 2. But I wasn't speeding. 3. Therefore..." and "A. A number is equal to the product of its square roots. B. 4 = -2 x -2. C. Therefore -2 is the square root of 4." —— Shakescene (talk) 07:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's the solution in Venn diagram form. Taggart.BBS (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

whoops, that's not the solution, I forgot that Plato was also mortal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taggart.BBS (talk • contribs) 20:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

For white peoples to have a dark brown skin

Is this possible for whites to have a brown skin like brown people or close to black people's skin tone. I though race and human skin color is not quite the same thing.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Tanning can make skin very dark - depending on the person. Some people claim there is no such thing as race. Others find racial characteristics in entire populations - not individuals. So, an individual can be an outlier within a population (racial) norm. -- kainaw™ 21:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Race doesn't have any real meaning in science. Skin colour is a very complicated characteristic determined by a mixture of genetics and environment (ie. a tan). It is certainly possible (and happens) for a fairly dark skinned person to be considered white and for a fairly pale skinned person to be considered black - race is often determined by things other than skin colour. Under the one-drop rule someone with just one black ancestor so far back that you can't tell just by looking at them can be considered black. There are examples of the opposite situation as well. --Tango (talk) 22:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the "science", race can have a highly significant meaning. For example, some hypertension medications are racially dependent. If you are not the race the medication is designed for, it won't work well for you (if it works at all). If you are the correct race, it will likely provide a great benefit. Similarly, consider the entire science field of anthropology or forensic science - both rely heavily on racial characteristics. I feel it is better to claim the race doesn't have valid meaning outside of science because outside of science it tends to only mean skin color. -- kainaw™ 22:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're referring to BiDil... the definition of "race" that the data supports (what little there is) is rather constrained. A lot of people consider BiDil to be more a marketing ploy than good science. In any case, the definition of "race" used here is at best statistical, like the other definitions of race that one gets in science—if your ancestors of the last 150 years or so are from X part of the world, you have a Y percent chance of having certain clusters of genes. Such a rubric does roughly sort out the world into "racial" categories in the aggregate (we find "Africans", "Europeans", "Asians", etc.), but it doesn't tell you much of anything about individuals within that group, and it plasters over a lot of exceptions and differences between groups and people. I'm not sure that such a statistical definition of "race" has a lot of meaning within science except in a very rough sense. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Then, a different question--what had been the reasons for the occurrences of black hair in the early 100 years to Anglos (e.g. Germans and English) while such occurrences had very seldom been to Scottish and some parts of Russians?Couchworthy (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no clue about that (and am not sure anyone knows "the reasons" for such things), but it seems to me that black/darker hair is certainly the norm amongst human beings, and that lighter colored hair is the rarity. Blonde and red hair are certainly mutations—see Blonde#Origins (and conversely, Black hair). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

"Race" refers to the idea that you can divide people up into a single, set number of non-overlapping groups. That isn't true. It is certainly true that there are difference between people and there are correlations between certain characteristics, but there is no simple dividing line where one race becomes another. Where you draw that line is going to depend on why you are grouping people together. --Tango (talk) 23:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Part of the question is what you (or society in general) define to be "white" and "black"—it isn't a rigorous scientific definition at all. What is someone who has one black parent and one white parent? "Mixed-race", in some quarters, but usually "black" and not "white". Race and skin color are not the same thing, but psychologically speaking, "whiteness" is usually defined in part by the color of the skin (though having non-white skin does not necessarily make one "black"—it just makes one "not white" and something else). This is a cultural construct, though (which does not make it a powerful one!). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A couple of comments: First, race is entirely a social construct. That means that how races are defined varies from one culture to another, while some cultures have no concept of race. There is no more scientific support for one cultural way of defining (or ignoring) race than for any other. So, for example, Americans define people of (at least partial) sub-Saharan African origin as "black". However, in Australia, the aborigines, who are probably more remote genetically from Africans than Europeans are, are called "black." Our article race discusses the many ways in which humanity has been sliced and diced, generally without any real scientific justification. Now, Kainaw has pointed out that some illnesses have a genetic component and some groups of people with a shared genetic background may respond differently to certain drugs. However, genetic distributions do not correspond to our ideas of race. A given gene may be spread across a variety of populations that our culture sees as members of different races. It is more the exception than the rule that a given disease or drug will apply to a group to which we've assigned a cultural label. For example, lactose intolerance is a genetically linked condition that is spread across most human populations, including a majority of people in southern Europe and on every other continent (except Americans of northern European heritage). Lactose tolerance is a condition concentrated not only in northern Europeans but also in the African Fulani people, which most North Americans would identify as "black". Another genetic condition with a distribution that does not correspond to "racial" categories is Coeliac disease. So, while science does show that certain conditions have a genetic basis, other than the trivial condition of skin color, those conditions generally do not correspond to our "racial" categories. Marco polo (talk) 02:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you spread genetic distributions (like skin color distributions) out on the aggregate, you get things that look a lot like "races". See, e.g. Cavalli-Sforza's Map of Human Genetic Distribution. We get our "Asians" and our "Europeans" and our "Africans" and our "Australians" more or less. But we are talking here only about the aggregates—we are smoothing away all of the variations between individuals and sub-groups of people and etc. And even within this very broad averaging of genetic similarity, the colors bleed into each other seamlessly, even if they cluster in certain highly-populous regions of the world. That's about as close as I can really ever find to a scientific definition of what we might call "race"—but it bears no resemblance to the popular definitions, and tells you absolutely nothing about individuals, only populations (and mostly historical populations at that). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to respond directly to the OP's question: Yes, people who are defined as "white" can certainly have darker skin than people who are defined as "black". This is purely anecdotal, but on a trip to Florida, I saw a blond surfer and noticed that his skin tone was darker than that of what Americans would call a "light-skinned black man" next to him. Marco polo (talk) 02:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The flaw is the colloquialism "white". People from India are darker-skinned, sometimes almost black, but they are considered caucasian racially; as compared with "orientals", i.e. "mongoloid"; or central/southern black Africans, i.e. "negroid", for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is yet more evidence of the uselessness of "race": I wouldn't call someone from India "Caucasian". I would call them "(South) Asian". South Asians are sometimes included in the Caucasian race, though, you are right. If people can't even agree on what "Caucasian" means, how can it be a useful classification? If there was some non-arbitrary definition, then people wouldn't disagree on what it is. --Tango (talk) 03:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is where the issue of sub-races starts to come into it, such as "Mediterranean" vs. "Scandinavian". The real issue is why it's done, beyond the obvious fact that it's a human obsession to classify everything. For some, it's simply interesting. For others, it's "us vs. them". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Exhibit A: George Hamilton.[1] Clarityfiend (talk) 03:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

insurance info question

I'm wondering if s.o. can point me in the right direction to find info on insurance industry misdealings, such as auto-charging $2000 for $1000 in life insurance. I would naively think that if you make monthly payments on a life insurance policy, that once you've paid the value of the policy, you'd be full up. Is there regulation on this kind of thing (USA, Calif.), or is whatever they can trick people into signing up for considered valid? (I know we shouldn't be giving legal advice, but I don't even know which key words to use in a google search.) kwami (talk) 22:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Relevant links might be the California Department of Insurance, which has consumer hot-line numbers for complaints and questions — they have a whole department about this in the government of California, and you should take advantage of it — and our articles term life insurance and whole life insurance; I think you are asking about the latter. Speaking broadly, any company can sell any consumer anything at any price if both sides agree, though there are laws about price gouging in some narrow circumstances. With insurance, overcharging is more controversial than on most other items, because no consumer fully understands what they are actually purchasing, and some insurance contracts (or the prices for a particular contract) might be considered unconscionable — again, this is in a few narrow cases. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:27, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

After reading what I just typed, I hasten to add that insurance is heavily regulated throughout the United States and there are more consumer protections in place than I implied above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for! kwami (talk) 22:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If you expect to pay your last insurance premium when you have paid the value of the claim, you’re going to be sadly disappointed. The entire point is that you are expected to pay more than the claim, so that the insurance company can make a better profit. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Pirate Latitudes

At one point in Pirate Latitudes, the pirates are inspecting the silver bars aboard the galleon they captured, and are dismayed to find that most of them are at least half platinum, because "platinum was a worthless metal". I find this a bit hard to believe, since platinum is so much rarer than gold or silver. However, Michael Crichton typically researches everything and doesn't make any glaring errors. Was platinum really worthless in the 17th century? --70.245.188.122 (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, platinum wasn't pricey until the early 20th century [2]. Wrad (talk) 23:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Not only was platinum worthless at that time, but aluminum was one of the most expensive metals as late as the 19th century. --Jayron32 14:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, they would have been thrilled if the bars were aluminum. Googlemeister (talk) 14:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

No, they wouldn't. Metallic aluminum wasn't discovered until 1808, and wasn't refined until 1825. 17th-century pirates coming across a crate of aluminum bars would have tossed them aside as being worthless. --Carnildo (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the now-much-greater value of platinum due to its use in catalytic converters? Without them, there definitely wouldn't be as much demand for the stuff. Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Help me find a Poe essay

I am having trouble finding an essay by Edgar Allan Poe called "The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale".

A free downloadable copy of the full essay would be perfect, but a pointer to a book the essay is anthologized in would be good too. Thanks for your help! -- noosphere 23:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me, by Googling around, that it may be just a section excerpted from one of Poe's essays on Hawthorne that people are giving that title today. The three essays on Hawthorne are all reprinted in the Modern Library volume "Edgar Allen Poe: Essays and Reviews" (which is where I would expect to find basically any of Poe's essays—the Modern Library editions are pretty thorough). They are also probably online—e.g. here is one of them (which mentions single effect, but once). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)